Aspen invested in Hartford and 20 other communities across the country to build and deepen education and employment pathways for Opportunity Youth and established its Opportunity Youth Network (OYN), a national peer network and learning community among Aspen’s grantees.

The goals of the OYN network are:

1. Build strong evidence of success for utilizing the collective impact community collaboration strategy to build and deepen pathways that achieve better outcomes in education and employment for Opportunity Youth.
2. Make the case for increased adoption of the collective impact and community collaboration strategy as an effective model for community change.

At the November 2013 Convening, OYN members learned about Aspen’s foundational framework and explored strategies for deepening education and employment pathways for Opportunity Youth.

Representing Hartford were Lee Hunt of Blue Hills Civic Association, Alex Johnson of Capital Workforce Partners, Eileen Peltier of Asnuntuck Community College, Hector Rivera of Our Piece of the Pie, Yanil Teron of Center for Latino Progress, Trish Torruella of the City of Hartford, Andy Tyskiewicz of Community Education of Capitol Region Education Council, and Kim Oliver (HOYC’s Director).