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PROJECTS

Connecticut Appleseed continuously tries to reach out to new partners in the state’s communities, looking and listening for unmet needs which we can effectively address. We also confer with our national network of Appleseed affiliates and occasionally collaborate on cross-cutting issues. But most projects are born in the passions of Board members and advanced through the networks and resources of the larger Board.

For example, Board member Arthur White leveraged his unique experience in founding two successful national non-profits (“Reading is Fundamental” and “Jobs for the Future”) with his role as Educational Advisor to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to conceive our Connecting through Literacy: Inmates, Children and Caregivers (“CLICC”) project. CLICC is a program to improve the literacy and family relationships for at-risk children who have a parent in prison. Arthur’s project applies ground-breaking email technology to allow joint reading and discussions from remote locations, healing broken relationships in the process of improving literacy and employment-related computer skills for the children of inmates and their parents and caretakers.

Use these links for more information about Connecticut Appleseed’s current projects.

Schools to Prisons Pipeline
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”. The size of this pipeline is considerable: during the 2005-06 Connecticut school year, there were 60,650 students suspended or expelled and 152,849 school days lost due to suspension or expulsion.

Examining Connecticut’s schools-to-prison-pipeline entails looking at the juvenile justice system as a continuum of entry points—from early school-based behavior problems that result in suspensions, expulsions or Disciplinary Alternative placements to more serious law-breaking and probation violations. Research is needed on the common linkages between school discipline and the juvenile justice system to learn what practices or policies may increase the likelihood that students will be ensnared by juvenile justice.

To try to reduce the schools-to-prison pipeline, the Connecticut General Assembly passed Public Act 07-66 in 2007, which mandates in-school suspension for suspensions of less than ten days. However, this law has aroused strong concern and resistance from school districts because of the lack of funds to help support this requirement. Many school districts assert that they neither the physical space to keep students for in-school suspension nor the funds to hire staff or teachers to conduct the in school suspension.
Appleseed will actively work in the 2009 legislative session to preserve the purpose of Public Act 07-66 by financially supporting and structuring a robust and constructive in- school suspension program in Connecticut’s public schools. (more)

image 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. Appleseed Board member Dr. Mike Perl has successfully recruited volunteer dentists at the CT Health Services clinic in Hartford, where his colleagues treat roughly 200 children each year. But the scope of the state’s oral health crisis among underserved children has proven too large to solve with volunteerism alone.

Lifting Connecticut’s dental Medicaid reimbursement rates, a step which has shown to be successful in motivating dentists to serve Medicaid children in Michigan, South Carolina and other states, is crucial. That is why Appleseed collaborated in a successful advocacy effort in 2007 to persuade both the state’s Appropriations Committee and budget negotiators to allocate $20 million to remedy shortcomings in the state’s Medicaid program. (more)

image Education: Removing Structural Barriers to Parental Involvement
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 has taken three distinct phases:

1. With the classroom impact of the No Child Left Behind (“NCLB”) law the subject of intense debate, Connecticut Appleseed partnered with the national Appleseed organization and six Appleseed state “Centers” to examine whether parental involvement is improving due to NCLB. This collaboration produced the September, 2006 report: “It Takes a Parent: Transforming Education in the Wake of NCLB.” (more)

2. The Connecticut State Conference of the NAACP, the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN), the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Connecticut Appleseed have joined forces to give Connecticut parents a greater voice in their children’s education through the creation of a free guidebook entitled "How to Make Sure Your Child is Not Left Behind" and workshops in Bridgeport, New Haven/Hamden, Hartford and Waterbury to empower parents to exploit every possible advantage under the law to ensure a high-quality public school education for their children. (more)

3. Increasing Parent Access to Basic Education Law Information: Parents aren’t always aware enough about how to work within the legal/bureaucratic process 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 will provide 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)

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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 NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) 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’s Board voted 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)

image Elder Law Education
Connecticut Appleseed’s Elder Law project is providing 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 and updated the information presented that day into Appleseed’s “Connecticut Elder Law Resources” book. Distribution of this document in a workshop setting at senior centers throughout the state is helping seniors to better understand their legal rights and entitlements and to assess their legal needs. (more)
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Expanding Immigrants’ Access to
Financial Services
Immigrant communities in Connecticut 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.   Too many immigrants cash their paychecks in check-cashing stores that charge high fees and risk getting robbed because they carry lots of cash.  But before immigrants will be integrated into Connecticut’s mainstream financial system, our state’s banks need to understand how to improve their outreach and expand the products and services that they offer to the immigrant community. (more)

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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)

 

 


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QUICK LINKS TO OUR PROJECTS:
arrow Schools to Prisons Pipeline
arrow Dental Care for Disadvantaged Children
arrow Education: Improving Parental Involvement in No Child Left Behind (“NCLB”)
arrow Education: Parent Empowerment Workshops in 2007
arrow Education: Increasing Parent Access to Basic Education Law Information
arrow Mental Illness and The Criminal Justice System
arrow Elder Law Education
arrow Expanding Immigrants’ Access to Financial Services
arrow Literacy Connects Inmates & Their Children

 

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www.appleseednetwork.org

Appleseed, a non-partisan and non-profit organization, is a network of public interest law Centers working to identify and address injustices in their communities. Appleseed works to build a just society through education, legal advocacy, community activism and policy expertise, addressing root causes and producing practical solutions. As one of the nation's largest legal pro bono networks, Appleseed Centers work both independently and collectively, bringing their own experiences to create local solutions that are nationally relevant. We connect the top private practice lawyers, corporate counsel, law schools, civic leaders, and other professionals to tackle problems locally, at their root cause.
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