The Connecticut Opportunity Project, a Dalio Education initiative, invests in and helps strengthen youth-serving organizations in Connecticut so they can work effectively, reliably, and sustainably with severely off-track or disconnected young people ages 14 to 26 in order to help them re-engage in and complete secondary education or a credential, then transition successfully to a post-secondary pathway leading to satisfying employment at a living wage that supports their self-sufficiency. | | |
Opportunity Project Quarterly Newsletter:
Q3 2026
| | |
CTOP Grantee Partner Convening
In September, the CTOP team hosted its fifth annual Grantee Partner Convening. With over 100 attendees from our grantee partners' staff, employers, other foundations, and state and municipal leaders, participants engaged in a full day of professional development and learning with a focus on preparing young people for the workforce and preparing employers to be responsive to young people's needs.
The day began with a Problem of Practice Consultancy, where organizational leaders brought adaptive challenges for brainstorming and problem-solving to a small group of staff members from other grantee partner organizations. Afterwards, grantee partners presented their effective practices in Peer Learning Workshops to support other partners to think about how to apply the learnings at their own organizations.
The focuses of the workshops were:
- How to design workforce pathways with employer partners;
- How to foster relationships with employer partners to better support youth;
- How to develop a social enterprise pitch for fee-for-service revenue;
- How to design and implement a youth survey that provides actionable insights for programming;
- How to create a tool that integrates the Stages of Change to assess and monitor young people's progress and readiness.
Finally, the day wrapped with a keynote from Eddie Bocanegra, a national expert in community violence intervention, followed by a panel moderated by award-winning news anchor of FOX61 Symphonie Privet, which featured two young people from COMPASS and Forge City Works, keynote speaker Eddie Bocanegra, Mayor Michael Passero of New London, and President of Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges Jen Widness. The panel discussion explored what it takes to create opportunities and support young people experiencing disconnection to connect to a career with upward mobility.
Participants left feeling energized and excited to continue building partnerships that support their young people to thrive in Connecticut.
|
StreetSafe Bridgeport
Team Trainings
For the last two years, CTOP has supported Catalyst CT's StreetSafe Bridgeport team to redesign their program then hire and onboard an almost entirely new team. Now, we are supporting StreetSafe Program Director Ebony Epps to train their team on key components of the new program model and create a performance management framework that will help her team achieve their individual and team goals.
So far, CTOP has designed and facilitated trainings on StreetSafe's refined target population and implementation of the new performance management framework. In the upcoming grant year, our team plans to continue supporting the StreetSafe team's development with more workshops on their recruitment process, the Stages of Change, and their short-term outcome ladders to continue supporting Outreach Workers to build relationships with Bridgeport's highest-risk young people and help them disengage from community violence in favor of reconnecting to work and school.
| | Celebrating the Graduates of the Second Cohort of the Academy for Career Readiness | | |
In October, Dalio Education celebrated the graduation of the second cohort of the Academy for Career Readiness at Norwalk Hospital. This program, which Dalio Education created in partnership Northwell Health and CTOP grantee partner Domus Kids, is helping young people who previously experienced disconnection build workforce skills and enter career pathways in the healthcare industry.
This graduation marked an important milestone for the ten graduates who completed a rigorous 12-week program, where they learned hard and soft-skills in a classroom setting, applied those skills in a real-world hospital environment, and finally presented a capstone project to a panel, which included representatives from Norwalk Hospital, Dalio Education, and Domus Kids. The ACR team implemented multiple improvements to the program between the first and second cohorts, which in part led to the graduating class nearly doubling in size.
Now, ACR graduates are completing internships and moving into full--time roles in their selected career pathways, which include Unit Secretary, Environmental Services, Patient Transportation, Patient Access Liaison, or engaged in the additional Patient Care Technician training at Norwalk Hospital.
| | Our Grantee Partners' Work | | On Stage at Tedx: Domus's External Evaluation | | | | Kristin Anderson Moore, Past President & Senior Scholar at Child Trends, gave a TedxTalk in April about the importance of measuring positive outcomes when working with young people. She cited findings from the Domus Implementation and Outcomes Evaluation that Child Trends completed at the beginning of this year, where she noted that when surveyed, 9 of 10 participants said they felt loved in Domus's program. | |
Watch A Day in Their Life at Forge City Works!
Learn more about Forge City Works' program and what they do for young people by hearing directly from trainees and staff members!
| | | | COMPASS Building Connections at Conferences | | The COMPASS team traveled to Foxborough, MA for the New England Regional Streetworkers Conference at Gilette Stadium. COMPASS joined over 120 other organizations interrupting violence in their communities to learn, connect, and build community to improve their work. | | COMPASS leadership traveled to New York City to attend the Giffords Celebration of Courage. There, they connected with and celebrated organizations across the country working to end gun violence and interrupt cycles of violence. | |
|
| |
Op-Ed: CT's Workforce Crisis Is Hiding in Plain Sight
Our Piece of the Pie's CEO Hector Rivera makes the case that the solution to Connecticut's labor challenges is supporting organizations that are preparing Connecticut's severely off-track and disconnected young people for employment through paid work opportunities. These work opportunities allow young people to learn new skills and explore new career opportunities that prepare them to enter the labor force, all while earning paychecks along the way.
| | | | Welcome Aboard, New Executive Directors! | | MATCH is excited to announce that David Goldblum has joined their team as Executive Director. David began his journey with MATCH in October and brings a wealth of expertise ranging from education to community development, along with a commitment to and experience working with the individuals MATCH serves. These competencies will support the organization to continue building out its infrastructure with the policies, procedures, and practices that will improve the services they provide to trainees. | |  | Forge City Works is excited to announce a new leadership structure for their organization with the appointment of Becky McGuigan as Executive Director of Programs and Development and Jennifer (Jen) Hockenhull as Executive Director of Administration and Operations. Becky and Jen bring complementary skills and a shared commitment to Forge City Works’ mission of providing job training in the food and hospitality industry to help people achieve sustainable careers. | | | Forge City Works' Financial Literacy Workshop | | | | |
In September, Forge City Works hosted a financial literacy workshop as a part of the organization's design and implementation of their alumni programming, through which Forge City Works staff continue to support graduates' professional and personal development as they work in unsubsidized employment.
Lead Case Manager Logan Carruba and Employment Specialist Alba Ortega facilitated the 90-minute workshop supporting participants to think through the different types of expenses and learn budgeting basics to build their savings while paying their bills on time.
| | Connecticut Career Pathways Commission | | As a part of its strategy to strengthen the state's workforce and expand opportunity for residents, the Connecticut Department of Workforce Strategy created the Career Pathways Commission to improve and better connect education and career pathways across the state. In partnership with Social Impact Partners, CTOP organized two focus groups; first, with executives of our grantee partners and second, with their young people. In the first discussion, executives shared insights on what it takes to reconnect young people experiencing disconnection to work or school, in hopes that their experiences inform the Commission's recommendations. In the second focus group, 11 formerly disconnected young people from our grantee partner organizations discussed what was most impactful about services they received from our grantee partners to prepare them for school or the workforce. We hope that these perspectives and takeaways ensure the Commission considers severely off-track and disconnected young people in their recommendations. | |
|
Forge City Works' Farm to Forge
Forge City Works hosted their annual fundraiser Farm to Forge in Hartford in September. The evening was filled with delicious food, incredible cocktails, and inspiring stories from alumni and trainees about how the program has affected their lives and career trajectories.
| | | | |
Catalyst CT's
Above and Beyond Awards
In September, Catalyst CT hosted their Above and Beyond Awards where they celebrated people who go above and beyond in their dedication to their community. Congratulations to the recipients!
| | |
Domus Golf Outing
Domus gathered sponsors, community members, and donors at the Country Club of Fairfield for a day of golfing to raise money to support the life-changing work of Domus's programs. Safe to say, this event was a hole-in-one!
| | | Read the latest issue of Roca's newsletter, Roca Ink, to learn more about their programs across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. | | |
Congratulations to MATCH for receiving one of the 2026 NBCUniversal Local Impact Grants from NBC and Telemundo Connecticut. NBC and Telemundo Connecticut awarded eight local nonprofits supporting youth engagement and empowerment, next generation storytellers, and community engagement. These organizations are helping to make a difference in their communities. Congratulations to MATCH! | |
| | | Our Founder Barbara Dalio Visits DomusWorks | | | | |
In September, Dalio Education's Founder and CEO Barbara Dalio visited a Youth Service Corps work crew in Stamford, that operates as a part of Domus Kids' DomusWorks program. These young people are learning professional skills like reliability and communication alongside trade skills through hands-on landscaping work in Stamford parks, all while earning paychecks and being supported by Domus staff members in navigating barriers.
Our team was so impressed by the young people we met, as well as the staff members' commitment to supporting them.
| | More Than Words Site Visit | | | | |
In October, Dalio Education brought staff members from the Academy for Career Readiness, MATCH, and Forge City Works to Boston to visit More Than Words and learn about their program, their use of data, and how they support young people's personal and professional development.
More Than Words is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to helping young adults ages 16–24 who face significant barriers, including homelessness, foster care involvement, court involvement, or being out of school, so that they can gain the skills and confidence to achieve self-sufficiency. More Than Words operates social enterprise businesses, where they combine youth development and paid work experiences that mirror real-world jobs to prepare young people for self-sufficiency.
Our team and grantee partners left feeling energized and excited to implement new learnings and improvements to their programs in Connecticut.
| | Director of Workforce Reflects on Partnerships | | | | |
