$1.4 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT TO SUPPORT JUVENILE JUSTICE INTERVENTION
Published on December 09, 2022
HARTFORD, CONN (December 9, 2022) – Today, Mayor Luke Bronin, Senator Richard Blumenthal, and Senator Chris Murphy, alongside City staff and Hartford’s youth-serving providers, announced a new cross-agency partnership between the City of Hartford and the State of Connecticut’s Court Support Services Division (CSSD) to help justice-involved young people address the issues that contributed to their involvement with the justice system. With this partnership, the City will utilize a $1.4 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention, along with $400,000 from the City of Hartford by way of American Rescue Plan funding.
As part of this partnership, the CSSD will refer those highest-need young people under probation supervision to the City’s Youth Services Bureau within its Department of Families, Children, Youth and Recreation (DFCYR). The YSB will then work in partnership with CSSD, local educational districts, and community-based organizations such as Our Piece of the Pie and COMPASS Youth Collaborative to develop a care coordination plan that will provide highly customized intervention and support for these youth and their families.
“I’m grateful to Senators Murphy and Blumenthal and Congressman Larson for their tremendous partnership in securing these resources, and grateful to the many partners working together with our city team, including the Court Support Services Division and Juvenile Probation, as well as youth service providers like OPP and Compass,” said Mayor Bronin. “This partnership represents a whole new level of cooperation between the city, our youth service providers, and the State of Connecticut’s judicial branch, to ensure that we can deliver personalized, customized interventions and support to the young people who need our support the most. So many of the young people who are involved in our justice system have experienced extraordinary and repeated trauma, including exposure to violence and abuse, and helping them get on a different path means helping them heal some very deep wounds. We can only do that by working with each young person individually, with the intense, relentless, compassionate support of people who are trained to do that work.”
“This significant investment in at risk young people can be life-changing— enabling them to survive and thrive,” said Senator Blumenthal. “It will deepen and broaden Hartford’s commitment to community services that show at risk youth a positive path away from crime. Such young people have enormous potential to achieve and give back, if they have the right tools and resources.”
“Over and over again, we see innovative applications from the City of Hartford for federal grants that are seeking to try to interrupt this cycle of incarceration that plagues the communities in our cities and ultimately limits opportunities for economic, career, and social mobility,” said Senator Murphy. “Every kid and every family needs something different, and that’s what this grant is all about: building the team that can go out and assess every kid’s needs, and get them the help that they want. All of us should have a personal interest in making sure that every kid in this city has no ceiling on what they’re able to achieve.”
This partnership is the first of its kind in the State of Connecticut. The $1.4 million grant will be used for administrative and staffing costs as well as contracting with the City’s community-based organizations.