The Greater Hartford Youth Leadership Academy: POLICY BRIEF 2024

The Greater Hartford Youth Leadership Academy 

POLICY BRIEF 2024 

www.hartfordctc.org

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OVERVIEW 

At our Sixth Annual Raising Youth Voices Summit May 4, 2024, youth 

teams convened to confront some of the most serious problems in their 

midst, interact with adult leaders, and recommend positive steps – even 

possible solutions. This Policy Brief provides a sampling of program 

highlights and invites your views.

GYHLA POLICY BRIEF 2024 

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What Constitutes 

Leadership? 

Drawing upon the experiences and wisdom of past guest speakers (including former 

State Treasurer Shawn Wooden and Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas), the 

current youth cohort has been defining the drivers of effective leadership in personal 

conversations, including those this year with Congressman John Larson and former 

State Commissioner of Mental Health and Addiction Services Miriam Delphin-Rittmon 

(now Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services 

Administration). To further these explorations, the 2024 Summit featured remarks by: 

The Honorable Vanessa Roberts Avery, U.S. Attorney for the District 

of Connecticut. Having once been an extremely shy child, she advised, 

“Everyone has the capacity to lead” … and yet not everyone has to be 

on the mic! Reflecting that leadership skills will carry you throughout 

your life, she offered three “nuggets” as practices distinguishing the 

best leaders: knowing how to listen and learn; building strong teams 

around you; and not being afraid to push yourself. 

UConn Professor Dr. Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, Professor of History and 

Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Popular Music at 

UConn, earned his BA in History from Morehouse College in Atlanta 

(and an MA and Ph.D. in U.S. History from Indiana University). After 

publishing on subjects as varied as the New Negro Renaissance, mass 

incarceration, and hip-hop, he just wrote America's Black Capital: How 

African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy, 

detailing the heroism of that city’s leaders. Dr. Ogbar emphasized the 

importance of leadership as serving the people – it’s not just about 

aggrandizement and ego, he advised.


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Can We Get Smarter 

with Smart Phones? 

Taking on the question, What impact does 

social media have on youth? 

The Summit youth panel featured representatives from HCTC’s youth academy, The Greater 

Hartford Kappa League, Black Girls Achieve, and the Blue Hills Civic Association’s Youth 

Organizing for Social Justice. The panelists widely agreed that the dopamine-motivated 

reflex to pull out your phone can be overwhelming – and still, it can be difficult to experience 

social media without facing negative experiences like bullying or the inability to focus. At the 

same time, a large world of beneficial possibilities is available. With these considerations in 

mind, the panelists offered several suggestions for children and parents alike: 

Stay off social media when you’re around other people; your smartphone shouldn’t be 

who you interact with then! 

For parents or teachers: Don’t just take phones away – instead, teach children how to 

use them properly. 

Advocate the setting of screen time limits – and treat phone use as a privilege. 

Keep accounts private, and help children differentiate social media from reality (which 

can become confusing when, for example, a random criticism comes in from California!)


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Examining Root Causes 

and Local Conditions 

Whether standing with 800,000 March For Our Lives protesters at the U.S. Capitol 

or conducting interviews with experts on foster care and child safety, HCTC youth 

leaders have relied on a problem-solving process that requires each team to define 

a problem, gather relevant data to identify its root causes and local conditions and 

develop strategies designed to alleviate that problem. This year’s Work Groups 

centered their attention on Equalizing Education,


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What Would Help Equalize 

Education? 

GHYLA Team: Breanna Brown, Shenia Chantiloupe, 

Emmanuel Bailey, Kaiu Hercules 

Equalizing education requires addressing 

inequities in course access, improving 

school environments, enhancing parentteacher 

communication, and providing 

emotional support. 

T 

hrough the lens of inequity, this Work Group 

focused on elementary, middle, and high school 

issues, citing the U.N.’s identification of inequity as 

the most serious problem in education worldwide, 

but predominant in the U.S. Differences in access 

to schooling crop up in absenteeism, which is 

related to negative school environments, and the 

weapons, drugs and negative behaviors brought 

into schools. Moreover, inequity also is seen in the 

comparatively smaller course offerings that limit 

the opportunities in adjacent school districts and 

even in neighboring schools within the same 

district. 

For example, for two of our team members 

attending nearby Hartford schools, one can obtain 

college credit and begin higher education in high 

school – but the other has no such opportunity. 

Pointing to the important parent-teacher 

relationship, the Work Group also maintained that 

some schools have insufficient communication 

with the parents of their students, which can leave 

families unaware of the resources for options such 

as college, trade school, apprenticeships, or job 

opportunities. This issue is further complicated by 

the fact that 23 percent of U.S. students speak 

English as a second language (ESL) while 79 

percent of teachers speak only one language. 

The Work Group examined the negative struggles 

of children in the early grades who are easily 

influenced by harmful behavior as well as the 

damaging environmental struggles of middle 

school students who encounter antisocial 

behavior, bullying, low self-esteem, and academic 

failure. Lack of tutoring help, emotional and 

mental health support, and after-school activities 

contribute to disengagement, the team found. 

State data on negative school incidents from 

2017-2023 show increases in cases of weapons, 

drugs, threatening behavior, and fighting. 

By high school, when students are venturing into 

adulthood, advanced classes, time management 

and responsibility are key to students’ molding 

and exploring their passions, some schools have 

fewer qualified or experienced teachers and lack 

requirements for a certain subject in school. 

Absenteeism is worsened when schools lack 

classes related to career interests – and when 

students work to support their households.


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The Work Group’s recommendations 

for improving school climate include: 

Enhancing social-emotional learning 

Addressing the availability of weapons 

Improving the child-parent connection 

Making the school environment safe 

Offering Elementary-Middle School clubs/workshops 

and career-oriented courses in HS 

Providing more resources to single parents 

Moreover, with the Hartford Public Schools looking at 

cuts of 387 positions by June 30th due to the expiration 

of COVID-19 funds, the Work Group called for multiple 

sources of revenue to close the district’s deficit.


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What Would Help Prevent 

Community Violence? 

Looking at community and home violence, this Work Group identified four 

root causes: Normalization of trauma; Lack of mentorship; Lack of 

resources; and Negative social norms. 

In response to these community and home 

violence issues, the team recommended afterschool 

programs that promote civil engagement 

and emotional awareness; more job opportunities 

throughout the community; teaching people how 

and why their actions have negative effects on 

others; and emphasizing the importance of 

having someone to look up to or to talk to. 

Taking a closer look at school violence, the team 

then considered social, community, and home 

factors that affect the school environment, 

observing that “kids in school find interest in 

fights, so they instigate problems that are easily 

avoidable.” 

As to social violence, after listing as root causes 

the Dissolution of Relationships between 

individuals; Lack of Communication; Troubled 

Adolescents; and the Breaking of Trust, the 

team urged emphasis on the importance of 

Emotional Intelligence (Emotional Quotient EQ) 

and the encouragement of Social Emotional 

Learning in schools – including implanting it as 

part of the curriculum. 

Here, the recommended solutions were peer 

mediation, leadership programs, and even town 

hall meetings as measures aimed at deescalating 

and resolving conflicts. 

Let Us Hear 

From You! 

Email us your thoughts: 

info@hartfordctc.org. 

Today we have local, state, and national efforts to prevent 

violence. We don’t have to wait for tragedies; we know enough 

to head them off. The developing concept of Community 

Violence Intervention (CVI) focuses on how to prevent violence 

from breaking out in the first place. Researchers refer to CVI as 

intervening “upstream,” long before the trauma in the 

emergency room. This means paying attention to housing and 

in access to jobs, health and mental health care, school 

offerings, and safe neighborhoods. Our 2024 youth summit 

recommendations remind us that positive change requires 

going beyond passive acceptance to walk the talk.


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What Would Help Advance 

Mental Health and Wellness? 

This team’s overview of Mental Health defined it as “our social, emotional, and psychological 

well-being” and noted that related issues can arise from factors as varied as Life Experiences, 

Genetics, Brain Injuries, and Mother's Exposure to Chemicals. For its research, the team 

focused on the topics of School (depression and anxiety in teens); Social Media (the pros and 

cons); and Home (child neglect and lack of parental guidance). 

The team examined two 

factors that can affect 

mental health in school: 

Academic Pressure, which the team maintains is influenced by the lack 

of support from adults whom students need the most; lack of 

understanding of student lifestyles (the most common of which now is 

work); and parents’ pressuring their children to be the best. Data say 

50-75% of students report feeling stress over academics all the time. 

Peer Pressure, which involves the feeling of having to fit in with others; 

getting called out for not being like others; and caring more and more 

about what other people think about them. Data indicate that 55% of 

students report feeling stress due to the influences of peer pressure. 

Social Media, which can positively improve an individual’s self esteem, 

give people a sense of belonging, and encourage connection with 

others through different apps or websites, is a mix of pros and cons. 

The downside, according to data, is that 23% of Middle & High School 

students have experienced cyberbullying since 11-22-23, with 13.6% of 

cyberbullying victims in the U.S resorting to serious suicide attempts. 

Social media education, enforced age limits for social media apps, and 

promotion of parental guidance when children are introduced to the 

apps are potential solutions to these issues, the team recommended.


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The Work Group’s recommendations 

for improving school climate include: 

Looking at data on the lack of parenting, characterized by unresponsiveness to a child’s 

needs, the team cited data that 1 in 7 children between 2020 and 2021 experienced abuse in the 

home – and 23% of children under the age of 18 live only with their mothers. Life circumstances, 

health issues, and poverty are considerable factors, as are the styles of parenting (authoritarian, 

authoritative, uninvolved, permissive), the team found. With 40% of children going without 

support from one or both parental guardians, the lack of parental support is a major issue – and it 

is associated with adult depression. Finally, the team examined the barriers presented by public, 

self, and institutional stigma – the negative attitudes that can combine with cultural and religious 

beliefs to keep people from finding help. 

Finding Solutions to Advance Mental Health and Wellness. 

The team offered two tiered recommendations: 

Personal: Meditation (reduces stress); Connecting with Others; 

Improving Restfulness; and Therapy. 

Communities: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHSA); 

and Community Connections.

2550 Main St, Hartford, CT 06120 

(860) 724-1223 

INFO@HARTFORDCTC.ORG 

WWW.HARTFORDCTC.ORG

The Greater Hartford Youth Leadership Academy: POLICY BRIEF 2024

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