CT's Unspoken Crisis & Outside Perspectives as a Solution

In October of 2023, Dalio Education released a report titled “Connecticut’s Unspoken Crisis: Getting Young People Back on Track, A Study of Connecticut’s at-risk and Disconnected Young People.”

This report found its way to us at Outside Perspectives, and our initial reaction was a rather confused and dramatic, “unspoken?!?!”

As a former special education teacher in a town-wide behavioral program for a decade, I spent many years shouting from the rooftops: these kids need more, I need more, we’re not doing enough! 

Nicky and Liza had the same experience working in the youth development field for decades before founding Outside Perspectives. 

Clearly, the idea that this crisis was ‘unspoken’ didn’t sit well with us at first.

Then we began talking with people and attending the round table discussions hosted by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. We quickly learned that this report was news to many community members.

View full report here

We talked with Board members, partners, and colleagues about the potential impact of this report. Before long, we realized that this is an opportunity to share our concerns, as well as our solutions, with the world. 

Outside Perspectives has always run on a Partnership model, but over the past two years, we have fine-tuned our language, structure, and goals around this. Our Partnership model has, and is continuing to, evolve. 

In 2023, we spoke with several youth service bureaus, parks & rec, towns, schools, and other youth development agencies struggling to bring youth together. Often, they had the funding, the staff, and the programs in place. But where were the kids?

Meanwhile, the Dalio Education report tells us that 119,000, or one in five Connecticut youth, ages 14-26, are at-risk or disconnected. 

We shifted our conversations. We decided we needed to move beyond finding cohorts of youth to work with and, instead, offer our Partnership Model and programming to serve as the catalyst for forming these necessary cohorts of youth.

I created this document to share a quick-look-summary of the Dalio Report and how Outside Perspectives directly addresses the three main factors associated with disconnection in young people.

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In 2024, we have big plans to be a BIG part of the solution to the crisis of disconnected and at-risk youth. We are;

Collaborating with the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities to provide a webinar for town leaders from 168 towns in Connecticut. We will present our solution and advocate for using cohorts in youth work and transformative outdoor programming as a catalyst for forming these crucial peer support networks.

Collaborating with WorkSpace CT of EdAdvance to provide an ‘open house’ for school administrators, social workers, and staff to experience Outside Perspectives programming and build partnerships with schools in that region.

Collaborating with youth service bureaus to bridge the gap between disconnected youth and the mission to create youth councils and advocacy groups in towns across CT.

…and so much more to come!

We would love to hear your thoughts on the report, our proposed solution, or any ideas you have on solving this unspoken crisis. You can leave a comment or send us a message at contactus@outsideperspectives.org.

Visit our website to learn more at www.outsideperspectives.org