North Hartford, CT

While North Hartford is too often cited for its challenges – including a double-digit gap in life expectancy compared to suburbs just a few miles away – it is a community of assets. There are diverse social, cultural, and recreational organizations; there’s beautiful Keney Park, which residents call a “hidden gem”; and there’s a renewed spirit of collaboration – neighbors and local organization leaders working together to create change from within.

When North Hartford became a Wellville community in late 2016, locals warned us that “no one collaborates in Hartford.” There was even a 2002 Harvard Kennedy School case study on Hartford’s struggles with “multi-agency collaboration.” But we’ve seen just the opposite.

The North Hartford Triple Aim Collaborative was created in 2017 through a co-design process by community members and local institutions. It serves as the city’s designated table for multi-stakeholder collaboration on long-term health and wellbeing initiatives. The Healthy Hartford Hub’s Community Action Task Force is a group of residents and supporting organizations bringing a grocery store into a food desert as well as other health-promoting policies and services. Trinity Health’s Transforming Communities Initiative is investing in a host of resident priorities, including a healthy bodega project and mental wellness hub.

North Hartford is collaborating with other regions in Connecticut as well, leveraging the relationships and shared interests developed through the state’s Health Enhancement Communities initiative.

Of course, it’s important not to underestimate the work – and the temperament – required to collaborate effectively. A good example is North Hartford Ascend, which provides prenatal-to-career, wrap-around services to children and families in North Hartford. Ascend is funded by a U.S. Department of Education grant that is administered by Connecticut Children’s, the state’s only pediatric health system.

When this headline hit in September 2021 – “CCMC to Administer $30 Federal Grant” – it generated a lot of attention. But an equally important story was highlighted in Dr. Paul Dworkin’s opinion piece from January 2023 – “Improving Children’s Lives in Hartford Moves at the Speed of Trust.” The project got off to a rocky start. As Paul tells it, during the city’s town hall following the award notice, North Hartford residents “were extremely vocal in sharing their lack of confidence in our commitment to engage them as partners.”

Communities like North Hartford have experienced too many grant projects that are awarded based on their deficits, but do very little to improve them. It wasn’t going to happen this time.

So the project team listened to residents during the town hall and over the weeks that followed, in each case reflecting back what they heard. And they responded: The budget was shared openly. Project staff was hired from the community. Residents joined every level of the governance structure. The partner list expanded to more than 70 local organizations. Community conversations continue monthly, with about 400 people at the last virtual meeting. Local institutions have committed $36 million in matching funds over the five-year period, bringing the total investment in North Hartford to $66 million.

So in very real, ongoing and tangible ways, residents and project partners are in this together. They sit side by side in work groups and teams, co-invest their shared time, resources and experience, make decisions together, and learn and improve through collaboration.