A report on “Connecticut’s Unspoken Crisis,” regarding “at-risk” or already “disconnected” youth and young adults, has illuminated problems centered on one-fifth of those ages 14-26. Dalio Education and its consultants spanned sectors to gather data, engage advisors, and convene a series of discussions around this significant report.
November —Adoption Awareness Month— is an occasion to focus on a particularly precarious subset of young people: those who have experienced abuse or neglect, placing them in foster care or with that possibility, if their families cannot provide sufficient safety and support.
Attending to older youth (ages 14-17) before they become “disconnected” young adults is certainly key. Prevention and early intervention, from birth and early childhood, are important, well before adolescence. But we shouldn’t give up on any young person, including those who come under juvenile courts for child protection.
Those numbers have fallen in recent years, amid not only the pandemic but greater awareness of the value of family preservation, along with efforts to counter disproportionate effects of poverty and racism in child welfare systems. Between 2019 and 2022, Connecticut saw a 30% drop in the number of children under court protection —from 10,478 to 7,217, and increased percentages of children placed in families rather than institutions (part of a longer-term trend in our state).
Problems beneath the numbers
Yet recent years have seen surges in:
- Mental health concerns, for young people and parents alike, including suicidal ideation and often inadequate treatment capacity;
- Substance use, e.g., opioids—a frequent source of child neglect (far more common than outright abuse). A committee is reviewing ways to spend opioid settlement funds to remediate aspects of the epidemic.
- Chronic school absenteeism, sometimes from parents’ “educational neglect,” fueling truancy among older youth, lower graduation rates, less learning and preparation for employment;
- Youth without stable housing, including in New Haven. According to the New Haven Independent, there is “a spike in youth homelessness that district leaders attribute to increased family migration, domestic violence, and a broader housing affordability crisis.”
Such issues can make youth more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and trafficking, which LGBTQ youth face at increased rates if unsupported in foster homes, or their own.
These are national problems that our state (from the executive to the legislative to the judicial branch) is confronting more effectively than most others, but from which we are not immune. Given the resources here, financial and otherwise —from universities to community organizations— we could do far more to narrow inequality and broaden opportunity.
Eminent sociologist William Julius Wilson’s books include The Truly Disadvantaged, in which he described profound effects of deindustrialization, concentrated poverty, and family turbulence.
If one in five Connecticut young people overall is “disconnected” or “at risk” of becoming so, a larger share in the child welfare system might be said to be truly disconnected or truly at risk; they face heightened challenges.
Addressing risk multipliers, through youth and community strengths
As the Dalio Education report recognizes (pages 32-33), receiving DCF services, special education, attending a high-poverty school, and school transiency are correlated with a host of other risks. Such are the risk-multiplying experiences disproportionately prevalent among children in foster care.
Fortunately, there is hope for foster youth, if we listen to them and those working together with them. Connecticut has produced young leaders in this sphere —for example, Christopher Scott and his fellow SUN Scholars, and Sixto Cancel’s Think of Us. From CCA, CT Voices, CHDI, and CAFAF to the Huneebee Project, many other groups work with the Department of Children and Families, attorneys, foster parents, children, and their families. Clifford Beers specializes in mental health care, ’r kids Family Center in visitation, preservation, reunification. In recent years, our state has also seen the growth of a new affiliate of the CASA movement for children.
CASA: volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocates
Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteers serve children from birth to 18, and occasionally beyond. In partnership with DCF social workers as well as attorneys and other professionals, Connecticut CASA’s volunteers assist young people in Foster Care and under Protective Supervision, where children remain with families whenever safely possible. CASA volunteers build relationships with children and periodically report to judges to help inform decisions about each child’s best interests.
The CASA approach is associated with increased stability and permanency for children, as those with CASA volunteers are only about half as likely to return to the foster care system. There is a one-on-one connection to an adult and greater access to community services through the sustained, resourceful efforts of that caring adult. The aim: safe, permanent homes where children are more likely to thrive.
A child with a CASA volunteer, on average:
- Will receive a significantly higher number of services.
- Is more likely to perform better academically and behaviorally in school.
- Will report significantly higher levels of hope associated with positive outcomes such as increases in self-control, and positive social relationships.
Report recommendations, including coalitions and partnerships
The Dalio Education report includes many helpful recommendations. For example:
- #3 “Establish coalitions and partnerships focused on supporting at-risk and disconnected young people”;
- #5 “Significantly strengthen the capacity of organizations that serve at-risk or disconnected young people”;
- #6 “Invest in expanding support and services for at-risk and disconnected young people”;
- #7 “Invest in high-touch case management for at-risk and disconnected young people”;
- #8 “Invest in tackling chronic absenteeism.”
Among the suggested areas for inquiry are “increasing focus on particularly vulnerable subgroups,” including “young people involved in child welfare.” (p. 48)
Already, Gov. Lamont has established a Governor’s Kids Cabinet chaired by DCF Commissioner Vannessa Dorantes, tracking “child well-being indicators, such as behavioral health, social determinants of health, and housing stability. This includes improving partnerships across the child well-being system, and also developing policy proposals to better improve these areas.” Numerous agencies and institutions—e.g., UConn’s Adoption Assistance Unit and CCSU’s education of former foster youth that spawned Sun Scholars—help address these challenges.
Such a spirit of partnership is fundamental to Connecticut CASA, as our volunteers rely on professionals throughout the child welfare system, as well as on effective collaboration with children and families themselves.
The hope whenever possible is for children to remain with their families, and many of Connecticut CASA’s cases involve Protective Supervision, situations where children are with their families as long as that is deemed safe.
If children must enter foster care, placement with kin is explored first, and reunification with families is ultimately attempted if/when feasible.
Long-term foster care, particularly with non-relatives, is avoided when possible. Because permanency is crucial, adoption —by kin or by non-relatives— is sometimes the best course for a child. Transfer of guardianship is another measure that can provide permanency, without the need for termination of parental rights.
Adoption: one path to permanency, and hope
Connecticut marked National Adoption Day November 17 with some 30 adoptions that day alone. According to DCF, the agency and juvenile courts have “completed more than 420 adoptions this calendar year in addition to reunifying almost 400 children and facilitating over 280 children achieving permanency through a transfer of guardianship.”
Such numbers are encouraging, each an opportunity to alter intergenerational cycles of trauma associated with a lack of timely permanency. This month, this season, and year-round, we can give thanks to everyone who helps bring hope and homes to children.
Josiah Brown is Executive Director of Connecticut CASA in New Haven.