About CT 359

All Connecticut children will be on target and thriving at age three, five and nine. 

At the present time, data shows clearly that we are not there.

The CT 359 Network exists to advance policy, data, connection, and investment levers that address the systemic barriers preventing the needed bundle of services to ensure that all Connecticut children are on target and thriving at ages three, five, and nine. We are a project of the Connecticut Data Collaborative with crucial support from the Pritzker’s Children Initiative.

The CT 359 Network is a diverse group of individuals and organizations who all wish to contribute to the outcome that all of Connecticut’s children are “on target and thriving” at the ages of three, five and nine. The Network includes a working group, guide teams for specific areas of work (which we call Sweet Spots) and an expanding group of organizations that constitute our Circle of Friends. 

The Network meets virtually and works as a committee of the whole and also through time-targeted guide teams addressing key policy, data and practice issues.  The Network also hosts an evolving set of community cohorts in Connecticut, all working in the early childhood arena, and hosts a robust series of discussions on important topics to reaching our vision.

The CT 359 Working Group has identified a series of issues impacting “on target” development that lend themselves to focused attention. For 2023-2024, these issues are:

1. A 17-year look back at the 2006 Ready by Five, Fine by Nine Early Childhood Strategic Framework and the 2007 Early Childhood Investment Plan

2. Strengthening data development, alignment, connection and reporting: The art of the possible

3. Universal developmental screening and family access to integrated support and services

4. New initiatives in the CT Medicaid Program focused in the pregnancy and early childhood years

5. New parent-pediatrician partnerships to through family-focused, comprehensive pediatric care

The CT 359 Network is not your mother’s chevy. We live in an information-heavy world where it is harder and harder to separate real from unreal, and to retain attention for more than a few moments.  CT 359 Network members  “see the whole board,” are willing to “opt in,” focus on a few “sweet spot areas of promise,” get information when we need it, tell a really good story and back it up with data and facts.

We do not have the luxury of time.  Neuroscience tells us that the first three to five years of life are the hotbed for brain and emotional growth. Educational science tells us that early school success begets later school success.  Investment science tells us that it is more cost-efficient to build it right than fix it later.

We need a broad reach, but targeted effort.   CT 359 will work with an expanding network of information partners (our Circle of Friends) who have a stake in the early success of our young children. The deep work will come, however, from smaller groups of people who opt-in to focus on specific “areas of promise,” working virtually within a specific time frame (the Sweet Spot collaborators).

We will communicate relentlessly but smartly.  CT 359 will learn how to share information in ways that are respectful of the time demands, interests and assets of members and friends.  Children’s and family voice is imperative.

We will make mistakes along the way.  We will fix them quickly and learn from them.

We will live and work by the “quiet greatness” formula.  An uncommon work ethic, diligence, domain expertise, love of the game, honor.

The CT 359 Network was born out of the success of the Bridgeport Baby Bundle Framework, hosted through Bridgeport Prospers. This included 7 core community strategies that advance healthy births, responsive services and supports for parents, and on-target development for children. This is a community-wide effort, still in application today that includes four universal and target support “bundles”: universal education and awareness; the maternity bundle; the hospital bundle; and the pediatric bundle. These bundles are supported through seven community strategies (see below). CT 359 exists to address the systemic barriers preventing the spread of this bundle to cities and towns across the state.