CCA’s 2026 Legislative Priorities: Strengthening Systems That Protect Children

Every day, the Center for Children’s Advocacy (CCA) advocates for individual children and families navigating complex legal and social systems. But our work does not stop with individual cases. We also focus on strengthening the systems that shape children’s lives across Connecticut.

During the 2026 legislative session (February 4–May 6, 2026), CCA is advancing policy priorities aimed at protecting children’s safety, enforcing their civil rights, and ensuring that no young person exits state care into homelessness. This session, alongside other advocacy efforts, our work centers on four urgent areas: a child welfare system in crisis, ensuring access to early intervention services for children from birth to three, the rights and safety of students with disabilities, and preventing homelessness for young people transitioning out of state agency care.

Addressing the Child Welfare Crisis

High-profile tragedies and recent audits of Connecticut’s child welfare system have raised serious alarms about the state’s failure to fulfill its legal obligations to ensure the safety and care of abused and neglected children.

CCA is recommending comprehensive reforms to state lawmakers that will:

• Improve legal representation for children in child protection proceedings

• Increase investment in community-based services and supports for children and families

• Address the severe lack of foster home options for children

• Strengthen transparency and accountability in how Connecticut agencies meet the needs of the state’s most vulnerable children

These reforms are essential to restoring trust, preventing further harm, and ensuring that children receive the protection the law promises them.

Strengthening Access to Early Intervention for Infants and Toddlers

CCA is working with advocates and providers statewide to strengthen our system of care for the state’s infants and toddlers. Though low-income young children have legal entitlements to early intervention, medical and behavioral healthcare, and special education services, too many children and their families go without the services they are entitled to. CCA is speaking up for the legal rights of the state’s youngest citizens and advocating for:

• A comprehensive data framework to increase transparency and accountability for service delivery to young children;
• Increased funding for the state’s birth to three system—currently badly underfunded and struggling to maintain adequate staff to serve children with developmental support needs.
• State compliance with Medicaid entitlements for young children—screening and prompt connection to services.

Preventing Youth Homelessness and Supporting Adolescents in State Care

Each year, CCA represents youth who depend on state child welfare, mental health, and housing systems for their survival. Thousands of adolescents and young adults rely on state agencies for safe care and housing—many after experiencing abuse, neglect, or homelessness as children. When the state becomes their legal “parent,” it also assumes responsibility for their safety and well-being.

Youth who “age out” of state services face unacceptably high risks of homelessness, incarceration, institutionalization, and premature death. In a recent four-year period, more than 400 preventable deaths occurred among young people ages 18 to 21 in Connecticut, with suicide and overdose as the leading causes. Nearly half of these young people had been involved with the child welfare system, and one quarter had been involved with both child welfare and juvenile justice systems.

CCA is advocating for strategic, life-saving steps to ensure vulnerable youth can access safety and opportunity as they enter adulthood:

1. Prohibit the discharge of any youth from state services into homelessness

2. Strengthen protections that allow homeless youth to access and complete their education

3. Require state agencies serving youth under age 24 to annually report exit outcomes to identify service gaps

4. Fund crisis beds for homeless youth to meet statewide safety-net needs

5. Maximize federal reimbursement for housing, case management, and transitional services for older youth

The Rights and Safety of Students with Disabilities

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of children with disabilities in the state who cannot access the basic services they are entitled to in school. Funding gaps, workforce shortages, and inadequate oversight have left thousands of children at risk of losing months if not years of educational services and of languishing in classrooms without adequate attention to their care and safety.

In the last year alone, CCA has filed multiple legal complaints on behalf of children with disabilities, some of whom are completely dependent on adult support, who have been injured in school, came home with unchanged diapers, have been physically restrained and secluded in school, and have gone without teachers and services they are legally entitled to.

CCA is advocating for systemic reforms to:

1. Increase funding and support for school systems and educators
2. Strengthen state oversight and enforcement of children’s civil rights
3. Create better pathways for parents to bring concerns about the safety of their child in school to state and local officials.

Additional Legislative Advocacy

Beyond these core priorities, CCA is engaged in a range of legislative efforts to protect children and families across Connecticut:

• Housing stability: Partnering with advocates to ensure housing stability for children and families through legal reforms that will require “just cause” for the eviction of tenants. A large and growing cohort of those experiencing homelessness in Connecticut is children under the age of 5.

• Utility protections: Defending statutory safeguards that keep heat and electricity on for low-income families. Last year alone, CCA helped maintain or restore utilities for more than 200 children and their households.

• Transportation access: Working with youth and advocates to secure free bus transportation so children can travel safely to school and community activities.

Stay Engaged This Session

The 2026 legislative session presents a critical opportunity to strengthen systems that affect children’s safety, stability, and futures. We will continue to share updates on our priorities, advocacy efforts, and progress throughout the session.

Follow along on social media and subscribe to our newsletter for updates on CCA’s legislative work.