At the Center for Thriving Children, we know that opportunities matter. Our research has found a powerful link between access to opportunities in childhood and educational attainment and success in early adulthood. We’ve put that research into action, creating processes, practices, and partnerships that connect children with the enrichment opportunities and resources that truly make a difference in their lives.
With the blog on summer vacation, this week we are sharing past posts about how our team is expanding opportunities for students from Poughkeepsie, New York, to Revere, Massachusetts, to Dublin, Ireland.
Possibilities in Poughkeepsie: City Connects Teams Up with a City on the Rise
March 27, 2025
Poughkeepsie, NY sits on the Hudson River and is home to hundreds of acres of parks, two colleges, one university, art studios, a children’s museum, and an abundance of community pride. It’s also a city struggling with the effects of poverty and the impact of systemic inequities in education. In 2020, city leaders launched the Children’s Cabinet, leveraging the city’s unique resources to support the needs and ignite the passions of children and their families. It was only fitting that City Connects play a role in Poughkeepsie’s renaissance.
“I’m excited to see City Connects blend into our schools, partnering with us to discover each student’s interests, needs, and strengths, and putting targeted programming into place to support their academic journey. It makes a difference to have someone who cares, who will make every effort to connect you to opportunities, resources, and supports in an uplifting way,” said Diandria Williams, who oversees City Connects in Poughkeepsie.
After two years of operating at the middle school level, City Connects was launched in Poughkeepsie’s Early Learning Center in 2025 and will continue to expand across the city’s five elementary schools in the coming years. City Connects leaders see endless possibilities for leveraging resources in Poughkeepsie to ignite the strengths and interests of students.
“By doing interest surveys, we found out that a lot of students love art, swimming, and LEGOs. We have a swimming pool in our middle school, several community art studios/programs, and LEGOLAND is right across the river. We can use these resources that exist in the community to build up students’ skills, build up their strengths, and leverage them so that their social-emotional learning components are just exploding with possibilities,” said Williams. READ MORE
Creating Opportunities in Ireland
October 9, 2025
Center for Thriving Children executive director Eric Dearing gave the keynote address at the first-ever International Leadership for Inclusion in the Early Years Conference at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland, pointing to how inclusion and belonging are intertwined with creating opportunities to thrive.
“The conference was a powerful opportunity to renew, strengthen, and widen our efforts to ensure all children get repeated opportunities to thrive, at home, in early education and care, and in their communities. While challenges to children thriving appear around nearly every corner of society, the conference demonstrated how we can help children, families, and educators meet these challenges through inclusion and by reinforcing the many strengths that all children possess,” said Dearing, who recently published a study on how impactful opportunities in early life can be for children.
Dearing and his research found a receptive audience in Ireland. At the school, community, and government levels, people in Ireland are working to deliver integrated student support to their students. The Irish Department of Education and Youth established the National Centre for City Connects Ireland last year and schools in Dublin embraced City Connects over the past four years, bringing a whole child approach to student support into their schools and communities.
“Many people in the government, in schools, and in the community have been convinced this strategy works for Irish students,” City Connects Executive Director Mary Walsh said. “We’ve demonstrated that City Connects is useful and provided additional support the schools and students don’t currently have. It’s providing a way to intentionally narrow opportunity gaps so all children can thrive.” READ MORE
Reimagining Student Support in Revere
December 4, 2025
In the wake of the pandemic, staff at Revere High School in Massachusetts were stretched to the brink as they tried to support students facing new and unique challenges.
“Returning to school after the pandemic was a major stress test on all the systems, and it felt like everything broke,” said Chris Bowen, Principal of Revere High School. “We had lots of good people doing good work to support students, but we realized we didn’t have a strong set of processes and systems for student support.”
Bowen reached out to the Center for Thriving Children for help in creating Student Support Teams that could collaborate to better support each student.
Now, Revere High School has a robust system of student support, with teams meeting weekly to develop support plans for students in their cohort. Teachers, school staff, and community members know when and how to refer a student to the Student Support Teams. And attendance rates are increasing.
“The systems we created with our colleagues at Boston College have become internalized,” said Bowen. “Three years ago, we were focusing on fights, bullying, kids missing a significant amount of school or not going to class, and other more complicated challenges. Now we can shift our focus to more proactively supporting students, instead of reactively.” READ MORE
