Hartford H.E.L.P.

Sometimes, simple legal assistance can be the key to getting someone off the streets and into a more secure and productive life. Volunteer attorneys can often help homeless individuals with their need for a birth certificate or drivers license, with applying for social security or appealing the denial of benefits, or with clearing up minor criminal matters that are preventing the individual from getting housing or applying for a job.

Such legal issues can often be resolved in a few hours, or by making telephone calls. In addition to helping homeless adults obtain lost or missing identification or expunging criminal records, attorneys can provide valuable legal advice in practice areas issues such as housing, immigration and domestic and family law (more)

Keep Kids in School: Improving School Discipline

Over time, school districts in Connecticut have developed policies, practices, and philosophies on school discipline that have created an all-too-frequent pathway that is commonly termed the “schools-to-prison pipeline”. Evidence is clear that out-of-school suspensions and expulsions correlate closely with dropout rates and Connecticut’s juvenile justice caseload.

Connecticut Appleseed responded by launching a project to help redirect school districts’ disciplinary policies toward retention and away from suspension and expulsion. The project aims to minimize the percentage of disciplined students who become entangled in the juvenile justice system. (more)

Dental Care for Disadvantaged Children

With glaring disparity by race and income among Connecticut’s citizens in terms of oral health, Connecticut Appleseed first adopted in 2004 a program to broaden the oral health delivery system to more disadvantaged children In the intervening years, Board members Peter Libassi and Dr. Michael Perl prompted the Connecticut State Dental Association (CSDA) and its members to undertake a series of pro bono initiatives which provided several thousand children and adults with free dental care. By impressing upon CSDA the importance of developing a pro bono culture and sparking CSDA’s resolve, Peter and Michael have vastly expanded the scope of volunteerism among dental professionals. (more)

Education: Removing Barriers to Parental Engagement

Well-informed parents are critical both to improving the achievement of individual students and that of school systems. The educational advocacy role of parents may not seem worthy of a headline, but better engaging parents and realizing their potential can make a real difference in our children’s academic performance. Our work to enhance parental involvement is a centerpiece of Connecticut Appleseed’s project portfolio. It includes two projects described under the “Education – Past Projects” prompt and continues in 2012.

Parents aren’t always aware how to work within the legal/bureaucratic process at school districts and individual schools to ensure that their child gets the necessary support; as a result, parents at many times feel frustrated, isolated and unsure of their legal rights. Our Parents’ Access to Information project is providing legally-based but easily accessible informational guides and public parent forums to help parents feel more confident about their ability to navigate through the educational system and work with schools and school districts on their child’s behalf. (more)

Mental Illness and The Criminal Justice System

The criminal justice system is often unfair to defendants with mental illness, with key personnel having limited knowledge of the needs of those suffering from these illnesses. To address this problem, Connecticut Appleseed coordinated pro bono legal services that were volunteered to write a handbook directed primarily at attorneys representing such persons to help familiarize them with mental health issues under Connecticut law. In 2007 we distributed the 80-page handbook, entitled “Mental Illness, Your Client and the Criminal Law” to attorneys throughout the state.

Later in 2007 the Connecticut chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI-CT) contacted us to say that they saw a tremendous need for a similar handbook – but one directed at parents and other advocates rather than targeted at attorneys. After recruiting pro bono legal assistance from the NYC office of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton (“Sheppard Mullin”), Appleseed collaborated with NAMI-CT to develop a new guide that will help parents know how to navigate Connecticut’s criminal justice system as it relates to adults age 18 and up with a mental illness. (more)

Elder Law Education

Connecticut Appleseed’s Elder Law project gives Connecticut’s older adults of modest means, their families and caregivers an opportunity to learn more about the many legal and financial issues that confront them.  After a 2005 symposium at Quinnipiac University School of Law offered a series of educational workshops on these issues, we distilled the information presented that day into Appleseed’s “Connecticut Elder Law Resources” book. 

We substantially updated our book in late 2008. To date, its distribution of this document in a workshop setting at 45 senior centers throughout the state has helped more than 1,650 seniors to better understand their legal rights and entitlements and to assess their legal needs. (more)

Expanding Access to Financial Services

Connecticut Appleseed spearheaded a collaboration of financial institutions, community partners, and state and federal banking regulators that began in 2011 to connect unbanked and underbanked state residents with mainstream financial services – including affordable checking, savings, and credit opportunities.

An estimated 19 percent of Connecticut households either have no checking or savings account,or use fringe financial services rather than their own dormant accounts. These residents need help avoiding predatory and other high-cost financial services so that they can save, build the credit histories needed to access credit, and accumulate assets. But before these population groups will be integrated into Connecticut’s mainstream financial system, our state’s banks similarly needto learn how to improve their outreach and expand the products and services that they offer to those who are unbanked or underbanked. (more)

Literacy Connects Inmates & Their Children

The educational and emotional toll on the 2 million-plus children with parents in prison is devastating. Many inmate parents are severely depressed due to parent-child separation, do not want their children to know they are in prison and avoid both visitation by and communication with their children. In their absence, their children’s educational and emotional development stagnates or regresses. Indeed, it is the children of the incarcerated who are the innocent victims of our justice system. (more)

Bullying: Helping School Districts to Accept Greater Responsibility

That bullying obstructs learning, destabilizes victims and endangers young lives - and that roughly 1/3 of high school students are bullied - is known all too well by most parents. Less widely known: Connecticut’s 2008 statute, "An Act Concerning School Learning Environment", required every school district to develop and implement both a bullying policy and a prevention strategy, that the State Dept. of Education (SDE) develop model policies and that school personnel be trained in bullying prevention.

But in 2010 the SDE Commissioner testified that much remained to be done within many school districts to comply with the new law and ensure an emotionally safe climate for all children. Unfortunately, implementing a law successfully is often far more difficult than enacting it. While some schools have excellent anti-bullying programs and processes, budget constraints or other factors impede implementation in many schools. Appleseed’s project aspires to showcase model policies, strategies and training procedures that appear to mitigate bullying during the school day. (more)

Resource Equity Within School Districts

The national Appleseed organization’s February, 2011 release of “The Same Starting Line, How School Boards Can Erase the Opportunity Gap Between Poor and Middle-Class Children” was cause for celebration in Hamden’s public schools. Connecticut Appleseed had looked closely at Hamden during 2010 in a comparative 5-state study on how school districts allocate their resources to provide opportunities to both poor and middle-class children. Our finding - that Hamden can be proud of its commitment to fairness – was featured in The Same Starting Line.

Policies and priorities of school boards can make a big difference in the distribution of academic success within each district. Appleseed’s collaborative study therefore looked at resources such as teacher experience, building upgrades and the availability of Advance Placement courses and tutors to compare how students in schools from relatively poorer and middle-class neighborhoods are being treated. Hamden Board of Education Chairman Michael D’Agostino sits on Connecticut Appleseed’s Board of Directors and volunteered his district to be a part of the study. (more)

Health Career Training Initiative

As hospital costs rise, coordinating improved home health care through community health clinics is a key means by which health care reform can achieve savings. But all too often, the relatively low-skilled home care providers who assist patients at home are trapped in dead end, low-paying jobs. Training that facilitates a career progression for home-care technicians and health providers to upgrade their technical skills is a “big idea whose time has come”, according to one prominent health insurer.

In addition, devising attractive and fulfilling training tracks for home-care technicians will increase access to primary and preventive care for many underserved populations – and particularly the elderly. (more)