Let’s invest in the well-being of our children

Connecticut’s young people are struggling. The mental health and well-being of our children was not being adequately addressed before COVID-19 and the pandemic exacerbated existing gaps both in services and in the connections and opportunities our young people have. The leaders of the state legislature have put forward tremendous proposals that will fundamentally change the mental health and early childhood landscape in our state. The proposals are ambitious, and fitting of the moment of crisis that our families and children are currently facing.

And we can go even further. Mental health care is critically important, but mental health isn’t just about having the ability to talk to a professional when you’re in need. It’s about having a life filled with all the things that make it worth living. The ability to play, to have fun, to learn, to laugh, to find your passion. As parents, we see this firsthand when our child comes home at the end of the day beaming. When they cannot wait to recount the events of that afternoon or tell you the funniest thing that happened today.

So often those stories come from a child’s after-school or summer program — whether it be focused on the arts, athletics, academic enrichment, or just be fun and engaging. Programs like these offer more opportunities for our kids to engage with their peers outside of the classroom environment, build connections, learn and grow.

Despite the critical role programs like these can play in our children’s lives, too many in our state go without. According to the 2021 Afterschool Alliance “America after 3 p.m.” report, 111,633 children in our state go without any summer programs, and 216,511 Connecticut kids would enroll in an after-school program if one were available to them. These are staggering numbers. And more often than not the children without access to such programs are in the most disadvantaged areas of our state. Currently, the state does not have a consistent, dedicated funding stream to support programs in the places that need it most. It’s time we change this.

Further still, for older kids a first job can be the start of a career, a foundation for economic freedom, or just a lesson in how to work in a professional environment. Many cities know the value of youth employment. Whether it be the Mayor’s Youth Employment Program in Stamford, the Waterbury Summer Employment Program, or Youth@Work in New Haven, municipalities across Connecticut employ young people to do work for their community in the very neighborhoods they grew up in. These programs are hugely impactful but are often strapped for resources — a decade ago New Haven’s Youth@Work program was able to hire nearly double the number of young people as it does today. Demand for these jobs has gone up, but our ability to fund the program has gone down. Just a few weeks ago, I joined the mayors of Stamford, Waterbury, Norwalk, Middletown, East Hartford, New London, Windham and Hamden to call for a Youth Investment Plan: a five-year, $1 billion investment into the types of programs that we know work, provide for the mental health and well-being of Connecticut’s most vulnerable young people, build an ecosystem of services and supports, and create a brighter future for our state.

Connecticut should be a place where every child has the opportunity to thrive. Policymakers often talk about our youth, but this should not just be a vision but a reality. We can give our young people the chances they so desperately need and rightly deserve. The chance to play music, compete in math club, score their first goal, be the last one standing in dodge ball, see their friends, learn about the world, grow, compete, fail, win, get better, be happy. We can make that a reality for every child in our state regardless of where they grow up. And we can do it by investing in them not tomorrow or somewhere down the road but today.

We are in an urgent moment in our state’s history, and our decisions will have lasting impacts upon our young people and our state’s future. Let’s decide to make the promise of Connecticut one where every child has their needs met, and everyone has the opportunity to thrive.