I thought I would share a story of why we need a formal system of communication and collaboration for providing wrap-around supports to New Haven’s youth.

A couple weeks ago, a social worker from one of the schools came to our office to talk about an 8^th grader who was doing extremely poorly in school.  One of the things he told her that he was succeeding at was our Green Jobs Youth Development program.  She found us to find out more, and figure out how we could work together to support him so that he stayed in school.  Because no one could really tell the other exactly  what was going on with the family due to privacy concerns, we worked something out, and committed to stay in touch.  The boy has 2 younger siblings who are in our programs as well, attend the school and are not doing well.