Connecting Residents to Family Sustaining
Work and Earnings

With the varied levels of job readiness among residents in Frog Hollow and Upper Albany, Making Connections in Hartford's efforts have evolved over time to provide both basic skills and workforce strategies tailored to neighborhood needs. Making Connections and its local partners have placed strong emphasis on providing support to young adults and families in view of the disproportionately high youth unemployment, teen pregnancy, and low high school graduation rates in the Frog Hollow and Upper Albany neighborhoods. Following are brief overviews of the primary activities and strategies that Making Connections' partners have in place to increase family employment and earnings:

Center for Young Working Families
The Center for Young Working Families is a program that works to pull together and coordinate services in ways that help young families find good jobs, increase earnings, and build assets. Because this program is targeting some of the hardest to employ young adults in the city, Making Connections and its local partners have done extensive design and development work to make sure it provides the right mix of education, job training, placement, social services, and other supports. The families currently served by the Center for Young Working Families receive career counseling and financial education and get help identifying employment, career, and personal goals.

Neighborhood Workforce Pipelines
Construction Trades: Making Connections is partnering with the Hartford Jobs Funnel to build a direct pipeline from the Frog Hollow and Upper Albany neighborhoods to jobs in the construction trades. The Hartford Jobs Funnel is a coordinated system of outreach/recruitment, assessment, case management, pre-employment preparation, job training, and retention services for city residents seeking employment. During the past five years, the Jobs Funnel has placed more than 500 Hartford residents in apprenticeships and full time jobs. The majority of these residents are from the Frog Hollow and Upper Albany neighborhoods. Making Connections is working with the Jobs Funnel to further increase the number of residents in construction jobs, as well as to provide basic literacy and math training to more residents. Increasing attention will be paid to helping men and women returning to the neighborhoods from prison to find work.

Allied Health, Healthcare and Technology Sectors: Making Connections also is working with the Urban League of Greater Hartford to build the capacity of its existing pipelines to jobs in the allied health, healthcare and technology workforce sectors in order to serve more Frog Hollow and Upper Albany residents.

Career Advancement Training: Making Connections collaborates with the Connecticut Women’s Legal and Educational Fund to strengthen its Bridges Program, which has proven effective in helping Certified Nurse Assistants to develop the skills needed to move up the career ladder and qualify for nursing jobs and other specialized positions in the allied health care sector.

career services  |  money management
early childhood education  |  resident leadership services