Children In Homeless Families Research Articles

Bidirectional Relations between Parenting Practices and Child Externalizing Behaviors in Formerly Homeless Families: A Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis

SYNOPSIS Objective . This study examined the bidirectional relations between effective parenting practices and externalizing problems in children in homeless families. Design . The sample comprised 223 children (M = 8.12 years) in 137 families living in temporary supportive housing, who participated in the Early Risers conduct problems prevention program lasting 2 years. Video-recorded observations of parent-child interactions were collected and rated by trained observers to assess effective parenting practices. Child externalizing problems were reported by their school teachers. Both variables were assessed at baseline prior to intervention and at 1- and 2-year post-baseline. Results . Child externalizing problems at baseline were negatively associated with effective parenting from baseline to year 1 as well as from year 1 to year 2. Observed effective parenting practices at year 1 were negatively associated with child externalizing problems from year 1 to year 2. Conclusions . These findings underscore the presence of bidirectional influence processes between parents and children in high-risk families. Implications for intervention programs for high-risk families are discussed.

Health and Self-Regulation among School-Age Children Experiencing Family Homelessness.

Children in homeless families have high levels of adversity and are at risk for behavior problems and chronic health conditions, however little is known about the relationship between cognitive-emotional self-regulation and health among school-aged homeless children. Children (n = 86; mean age 10.5) living in shelters were assessed for health, family stress/adversity, emotional-behavioral regulation, nonverbal intellectual abilities, and executive function. Vision problems were the most prevalent health condition, followed by chronic respiratory conditions. Cumulative risk, child executive function, and self-regulation problems in children were uniquely related to child physical health. Homeless children experience problems with cognitive, emotional, and behavioral regulation as well as physical health, occurring in a context of high psychosocial risk. Several aspects of children’s self-regulation predict physical health in 9- to 11-year-old homeless children. Health promotion efforts in homeless families should address individual differences in children’s self-regulation as a resilience factor.

A scoping study: children, policy and cultural shifts in homelessness services in South Australia: are children still falling through the gaps?

Homeless families are the fastest growing segment of the homelessness population. Homelessness services are often the first to know when children are at risk of disengagement with health, welfare and education services. Changes to Australian policy to explicitly attend to the needs of children are attempts to address the complexity of, and provide better outcomes for, homeless children. There are mounting levels of evidence describing some of the needs of children who are homeless. Using the scoping study methodological framework, this review of academic and grey literature identified the extent to which service providers provide for the needs of homeless children. The literature search was conducted from September 2012 to April 2013 using ProQuest, Science Direct, Sage and OVID databases. Therefore, the objectives of this scoping study were to: (i) identify the specific needs of children in homelessness; (ii) describe recent changes in policy relating to care for children in homelessness services; (iii) explore the evidence on how service providers can enact care for children in homelessness services; (iv) identify the types of practice changes that are needed to optimise outcomes for children; and (v) identify the gaps in service delivery. This article describes the Australian policy changes and explores the potential impact of subsequent sector reforms on the internal practices in front-line homelessness services, in order to overcome structural and systemic barriers, and promote opportunities for children in homeless families. This scoping study literature review contributes to the understanding of the impact of policy change on front-line staff and suggests possible practice changes and future research options.

Parental Incarceration as a Risk Factor for Children in Homeless Families.

The current study aimed to describe the prevalence of children of incarcerated parents (COIP) in a sample of homeless/highly mobile children, examine the relationship between parental incarceration and other risk factors, and investigate the effect of parental incarceration on child academic and mental health outcomes. The authors compared COIP (n = 45) to children whose parents were never incarcerated (n = 93) within a sample of 138, 4- to 7-year-old ethnically diverse children residing in emergency homeless shelters. Children's caregivers provided information about children's history of parental incarceration and other family experiences. Children's teachers reported academic and mental health outcomes in the subsequent school year. Compared to children with no history of parental incarceration, COIP experienced more negative life events. Regression models revealed that a history of parental incarceration was a significant predictor of teacher-reported internalizing problems. These results have implications for the identification and treatment of the highest risk homeless/highly mobile children.

Examining the impact of family services on homeless children

AbstractThis study examined the impact on children of services delivered through a collaborative initiative designed to provide supports to working poor families who are homeless or at immediate risk of becoming homeless. Overall, a number of positive findings can serve to inform the development of promising intervention strategies for children in homeless families and highlight areas for further research. Along with improved housing status, there was a statistically significant improvement in the economic self‐sufficiency of the families served, regardless of whether they completed the full programme cycle. In addition, youth self‐report data indicated significant improvements in externalizing and internalizing behaviour. The ability to combine programme data with school data for participating children also made it possible to explore school performance outcomes. Although these results did not indicate a change in participants’ levels of attendance or reading performance, there was a statistically significant improvement in students’ math scores. Moreover, when participating children were compared with a group of students matched on their level of academic performance at baseline who had not received housing or homeless services, no significant differences were detected between groups post‐intervention, indicating that services may help reduce the risk of homeless students’ falling further behind their peers academically.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Parenting on the Academic Functioning of Young Homeless Children

Research Findings: Effects of parenting quality on the academic functioning of young homeless children were examined using data from 58 children ages 4 to 7 and their parents during their stay at an emergency homeless shelter. Parenting quality, child executive function, child intellectual functioning, and risk status were assessed in the shelter, and teacher reports of academic functioning were obtained when the children began kindergarten or 1st grade. As hypothesized, parenting quality was associated with children's academic success, and this effect was mediated by executive function skills in the child. Parenting quality also had a moderating effect on risk, consistent with a protective role of high-quality parenting among children with higher risk levels. Concomitantly, children with higher risk and lower parenting quality appeared to be more vulnerable to academic problems. Practice or Policy: In homeless families, parenting may play an especially important role in academic success through multiple pathways, including the development of executive function skills in their children. Policies and practices to support parents and foster the executive function skills of young children in homeless families may be important strategies to promote child academic success. Implications for intervention efforts with homeless parents and children are discussed.

Violence and Aggression in the Lives of Homeless Children

The present research examined the role of violence and aggression in the lives of children in homeless families, focusing on possible connections among family violence, children's aggression, and children's problems with social isolation and rejection. Measures were obtained from structured interviews with 93 sets of mothers and children. Consistent with past research, average estimates of specific violent incidents experienced by mothers (as adults) were quite high. Measures of this family violence were reliably correlated with children's behavior problems as well as with measures of aggression in peer relationships (victimization, ease of resolving fights with friends).Finally, results of regression analyses were most consistent with a model in which family violenceand economic distress contributed to problematic aggressive behaviors among children; that aggression, in turn, appeared to lead to social isolation and avoidance. The overall results emphasized the need to address violence and aggression in any intervention programs for homeless children and families.

The mental health of children in homeless families and their contact with health, education and social services.

Previous research indicates that children in homeless families have a high risk of physical and mental illness. This study reports the initial stage of a longitudinal research programme to measure the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among parents and children in homeless families. A sample of parents in 113 homeless families were interviewed within 2 weeks of admission to seven homeless centres in the City of Birmingham, and compared with a sample of 29 low-income families who were not homeless. Both sets of interviews used the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL), the Communication Domain of the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales (VABS), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), the Interview Schedule for Social Interaction (ISSI), and height and weight percentiles. A sub-sample of children was also interviewed. The results indicate that 85% of families became homeless because of domestic or neighbourhood violence, that in 54% of families in homelessness coincided with the separation of the partners, and that 49% of mothers had current psychiatric morbidity. Children in homeless families had delayed communication and higher mean scores for mental health problems than the comparison sample. Homeless children were also more likely to have had histories of abuse, and less likely to have attended school or nursery school since becoming homeless. Homeless families had high rates of contact with primary healthcare and social services, but few had been in contact with specialist child and adolescent mental health services. These results indicate a need for a co-ordinated action by housing, social services, education, health services, and the police to prevent families from becoming homeless by protecting victims of domestic and neighbourhood violence from further violence and intimidation. Hence the need to rapidly re-house into permanent accommodation those who do become homeless, to maintain education for their children, and to ensure that such families have access to effective social support and healthcare.

Are There Different Types of Homeless Families? A Typology of Homeless Families Based On Cluster Analysis

Are There Different Types of Homeless Families? A Typology of Homeless Families Based On Cluster Analysis* Evangeline R. Danseco and E. Wayne Holden** Cluster analysis was conducted using data from 180 families and 348 children participating in a comprehensive health care program for children in homeless families. Three empirically derived groups of homeless families were identified, with clusters primarily differentiated on previous history of homelessness, parenting stress, and major life stressors. One group displayed higher rates of parenting stress and major life concerns. Children in this group consistently exhibited greater behavior problems, compared with children in the other clusters, and showed a trend suggesting poorer cognitive, academic, and adaptive behavior outcomes. Children in the cluster of homeless families whose parents reported low parenting stress and low major life concerns exhibited better outcomes. Results are discussed within the context of developing more sophisticated multivariate models for specifying the effects of variations in homelessness and poverty in general on children and families. Key Words: child development, homelessness, parenting, poverty, resilience. Research on the effects of homelessness on children's educational, developmental. and mental health status has yielded inconsistent results. While some investigations have reported serious detrimental effects among the majority of children in homeless families (e.g., Bassuk & Rosenberg, 1990; Zima, Wells, & Freeman, 1994), others have reported more conservative estimates consistent with outcomes typically reported for children in impoverished, housed families (e.g., Masten, Miliotis, Graham-Berman, Ramirez, & Neeman, 1993; Rescorla, Parker, & Stolley, 1991). In a recent review of studies on the mental health of homeless children, Holden, Horton, and Danseco (1995) noted that such inconsistencies reflect conceptual and methodological limitations of research in this area. Recommendations were made for avoiding specific methodological pitfalls and utilizing existing frameworks in developmental psychopathology as conceptual bases for guiding research in this area. The lack of conceptual frameworks to guide research efforts in this area is one of the more serious limitations hindering our understanding of the effects of homelessness on children. Homelessness is often assumed to be a unitary phenomenon, with research methodologies and data analyses attempting to examine the main effects of homelessness on children's functioning. While this approach presents information that can be critical in highlighting the plight of homeless children, compared with poor but housed children, this approach does not assist in identifying aspects of family homelessness that may differentially affect children's mental health status. This paper presents an exploratory analysis to identify different types of homeless families through an empirical method and, second, to examine variations in children's outcomes among these types of homeless families. The development of a typology for homeless families aids our understanding of the mechanisms by which homelessness affects children in response to calls for research to focus on the processes by which poverty and other risk factors affect children (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1993; Garmezy, 1993; Huston, McLoyd, & Garcia Coll, 1994; Rutter, 1993). Moreover, obtaining empirically-derived categories of homeless families can verify descriptions of various types of homeless families often advanced in the literature. For example, the Institute of Medicine report (1988) described three patterns of homeless families based solely on descriptions of service providers and review of the literature. Similarly, Koegel and Burnam (1987) presented profiles of traditional and nontraditional homeless alcoholic adults. These types of homeless families were not empirically driven nor subjected to further analysis. …

Children in homeless families in Melbourne: health status and use of health services.

To determine the prevalence of health and behaviour problems in a sample of children in homeless families and of psychological problems in their parents, and to assess the use of health services by homeless families. A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based prevalence survey. Supported accommodation provided by a welfare service in Melbourne between May 1994 and June 1995. 51 children from 31 families soon after housing crises. More than one-third of all children had total behaviour problems scores in the "deviant" range (i.e., requiring mental health referral). Intellectual disability/developmental delay, skin problems, vision problems, recurrent headache, and asthma or other breathing problems were more prevalent in these homeless children than in a large Australian normative population. Their mothers scored higher than a large normative sample on the mental health questionnaire, most markedly for "anxiety-insomnia", "severe depression" and total score. Cost of treatment and transport difficulties were seen as barriers to using health care services. Australian health-care practitioners should be aware of the health and health service access problems of children in homeless families, and work to minimise their physical, emotional, developmental and academic disadvantages. Psychological support services should be available for homeless families, particularly for mothers.

Children in homeless families: risks to mental health and development.

This study examined the psychological adjustment of 159 homeless children in comparison with a sample of 62 low-income children living at home. In each group, ages ranged from 8 to 17 years. As expected, homeless children were found to have greater recent stress exposure than housed poor children, as well as more disrupted schooling and friendships. Child behavior problems were above normative levels for homeless children, particularly for antisocial behavior. Across the 2 samples, however, behavior problems were more related to parental distress, cumulative risk status, and recent adversity than to housing status or income. Results suggest that homeless children share many of the risks and problems of other American children being reared in poverty.

Children in homeless families: Risks to mental health and development.

Children in homeless families: Risks to mental health and development.

The Security of the Child's World

This study describes common situations where children perceive risk and where we, as adults responsible for them, can lend a sense of security to their explorations. I first discuss the texture of risk in children’s everyday lives, then indicate how adults can influence this texture of risk by supporting, guiding, and instructing. These are lesser modes of pedagogic presence than are challenging and encountering children if we wish to establish the security of the child’s world. Phenomenological description of these various modes shows how children can learn to become responsible for the risks they face and acquire a sense of security that makes certain risks worth taking. Cette etude decrit des situations courantes dans lesquelles les enfants percoivent un risque et ou nous, en tant qu’adultes responsables de ces enfants, pouvons les rassurer dans leurs explorations. L’auteur discute d’abord de la nature du risque dans le quotidien des enfants, puis indique comment les adultes peuvent intervenir aupres de ceux-ci par leur soutien, leurs conseils et leur enseignement. Il s’agit la, pour qui veut securiser l’enfant, de meilleurs modes de presence pedagogique que le fait de le confronter ou de lui lancer des defis. La description phenomenologique de ces divers modes de presence revele comment les enfants peuvent apprendre a se responsabiliser par rapport aux risques auxquels ils font face et acquerir un sentiment de securite qui les incite a considerer qu’il vaut la peine de prendre certains risques. Latch-key children, sexually abused children, children from dysfunctional homes, abducted children, children in homeless families, street children—all live in a risky and dangerous world. Other children not facing such unfortunate conditions may yet become aware of risk and danger. If left completely to themselves, or if by our actions we disregard their fears and difficulties, children may find themselves exposed to risk. What are we to do about the security of the child’s world? How might those responsible for the care of children ensure that they grow up sensing the security necessary for their growth and development? Bowlby (1969; 1973; 1980) and subsequent researchers (Ainsworth, Mahler, Sroufe, Winnicott) show how a sense of security can be cultivated. Two main sets of influences contribute to a child’s sense of security, namely, the influence of a trustworthy person who can “provide the kind of secure base required at each phase of the life-cycle,” and the capacity of another individual to respond in a trusting manner and “to collaborate with that person in such a way that a mutually rewarding relationship is initiated and maintained” (Bowlby,