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Hartford Receives $200,000 To Improve Job Training For High-School Dropouts

By MARA LEE

July 15, 2013

Two charitable foundations, one local and one national, are spending $200,000 in Hartford this year to help local organizations refocus training efforts for young high-school dropouts in the city and to help urban high school graduates finish college.

Capital Workforce Partners already spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to give high school dropouts better job skills.

The organizations hope to improve job training programs in construction, manufacturing and health care jobs.

The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and the Aspen Institute Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund are the sources of the $200,000 grants. Hartford is one of 21 places around the country receiving funding for this purpose, including Detroit, New Orleans, New York, Boston the Hopi reservation and more.

The announcement from Capital Workforce Partners Monday said that 24 percent of people in Hartford between the ages of 16 and 24 either are high school graduates but aren't working or in college, or dropped out of high school.

At the end of the year, the organizations will have a multi-year plan for addressing these issues, and will apply for another $500,000 from the Aspen Institute to implement it. If it receives that grant, it will redirect $700,000 in federal job training money for the plan.