Our Story

Many things have changed since 1995, including our name. But all these years later, COMPASS Youth Collaborative still has the same vision: building a community where our youth feel safe, live peacefully, and have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Initially, COMPASS focused on Community Schools, delivering comprehensive wraparound services at three Hartford schools. In 2006, it secured a grant to launch the Peacebuilders initiative, a partnership with the City of Hartford that combined innovative anti-violence strategies with youth development approaches to reach disconnected youth ages 13 to 18.

In February 2019, under the leadership of COMPASS CEO Jackie Santiago Nazario, the COMPASS staff and Board of Directors held several meetings with consultant David Hunter. The goal of the conversations was to develop a Theory of Change for COMPASS— specifically, outlining how to create the positive change we want for our youth.

Mr. Hunter pushed the team to look at our organization’s work, what we do well, where we have challenges, and where we have opportunities.

We began with a goal for our youth: becoming ready, willing, and able to succeed in education, employment, and life. Then, we worked backward. We asked ourselves, what tools do youth need to succeed? What does our organization need to look like to provide these tools effectively?

As we looked closely at our structure, it became evident that we would have to focus our work to make the most significant impact. That led us to make the difficult decision to narrow our target program participants to high-risk youth in the City of Hartford, ages 16-20.

Since 2019, we have refined our work and designed our program to interrupt violence in Hartford by working with youth at the center of the violence. Our mission is to build transformative relationships that provide youth the tools they need to create sustained behavior change and transition successfully to adulthood.