Connecticut’s Unspoken Crisis and Supporting At-Risk Youth

Dalio Education released their important and timely report Connecticut’s Unspoken Crisis: Getting Young People Back on Track.  Based on this research, conducted by the Boston Consulting Group, the findings of this report are indeed a call to action:

• 119,000, or 19%, of Connecticut’s 14- to 26-year-olds were either at-risk or disconnected from educational and employment systems as well as other major institutions in 2021–2022
• Factors that contribute to becoming either at-risk or disconnected include poverty, racism, chronic absenteeism, and trauma
• Disconnection often results in outcomes such as financial insecurity, higher rates of crime and homelessness

Connecticut’s Unspoken Crisis is novel in that it is one of the only research efforts that stresses the continuum between the ages 14 and 24 by using cross-agency data. It also effectively articulates the critical challenges Connecticut’s young people are facing and provides a roadmap for driving change.

In the words of CCA’s Founder, Martha Stone, who served on the Advisory Group for the report: “On our watch, we see chronically absent youth turn into high school dropouts and then disappear from our radar. Without immediate action, the trajectory of these disconnected youth will continue unabated.”

CCA fully supports the research, recommendations, and pathways identified to ensure the needs of CT’s most at-risk youth are heard. This is in fact the work of the Center’s founding mission to protect and promote the legal rights of Connecticut’s most at-risk children and youth so that they have equitable opportunities for quality education, good health, and a successful transition to adulthood. We are proud to have contributed to this important academic exercise and are fully invested in encouraging its widespread consideration.