Child Homelessness Research Articles

A population-based inquiry of homeless episode characteristics and early educational well-being

Child homelessness and educational well-being is an area of national research that requires more precise investigation to address mixed findings. The aim of this study was to extend the investigation of the relations between homelessness and educational well-being by determining if timing and frequency of homeless episodes are differentially associated with children's academic and classroom engagement outcomes. This investigation used a comprehensive research model to study the effects of these homeless episode characteristics within a large urban student cohort. Additionally, this study accounted for co-occurring early risk factors. Findings indicated that having a first homeless episode in early childhood was associated with non-proficiency in mathematics and academic engagement problems. Also more frequent homeless episodes were related to truancy in third grade. These results stress the importance of early intervention for homeless children and underscore the need to further understand the variation in young children's homeless experiences.

The Society of Pediatric Nurses: Position Statement on Child Welfare

The Society of Pediatric Nurses (SPN) is dedicated to supporting its members in their practice. Since its inception in the mid 1980s, SPN has been instrumental in advocating for high quality, culturally sensitive, and comprehensive care for children and families. Advocacy for children and families takes on many forms. The development of position statements by the organization serves as one mechanism to begin to address some of the issues encountered by pediatric nurses in their practice settings. In 2008, the SPN Public Policy Committee developed its first position statement on child welfare. At that time, statistics showed that 906,000 children were victims of child abuse and neglect, and 3 children died every day from maltreatment (National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association, 2006). Foster care statistics also were alarming with more than 500,000 children living in foster care, and adolescents representing approximately one-third of this total (Love, McIntosh, Rosst & Tertzakian, 2005). Approximately half of all children in the United States (US) child welfare system had significant emotional or behavioral issues (Burns et al., 2004). Given these statistics and other child welfare issues, including the many children in kinship care and grandparent homes, and child homelessness, the position of SPN was to encourage careful assessment and identification of health and welfare needs, interdisciplinary collaboration including social services, referral to appropriate resources with careful follow-up, and political awareness advocacy. The impact of a declining global economy continues to affect millions of children and their families. Child welfare statistics remain relatively unchanged with the exception of

P01-346-Current priorities of investigation of mental health of growing generation

Complex approach allows identifying from many-sided positions integrative trends in research of mental health of growing generation. The case in point is evolutionary analysis of risk factors, role of adverse microsocial environment, negative impact of exogenous-organic and endogenous harms. In this aspect of relevance is distinguishing and all-sided development of new branch of the contemporary medicine – micropsychiatry (for this there are interesting basic data on grounding and propriety of description ecological fetal syndrome reflecting, in particular, influence of microdoses of radiation of negative consequences of the Semipalatinsk polygon etc.). Avalanche-like growth of indices of child homelessness and neglect is explained by consequences of microsocial crisis that is experienced by Russian family: this makes extraordinarily relevant problem of social orphanhood. The great attention must be paid to problem of mental health care of participants of pedagogical process (in a-chain-like-way “parent-child-teacher”).Researchers and physicians of child-adolescent subdivision of SI Mental Health Research Institute TSC SB RAMSci conduct work on psychotherapy of childhood and adolescence. In addition, there are many-year results of trials in the field of child-adolescent transculturology, conducted under auspices of the International Association of Ethnopsychologists and Ethnopsychotherapists (with active participation of Siberian scientists and physicians).Efforts of young researchers and representatives of older generation promote the successful development of new media, organizing-medical and preventive technologies allowing resolving the complex of tasks in heightening and mastering “quality of life” of Russian families, strengthening of the individual and societal health of the population of various regions of the country.

Ending child homelessness in America.

Approximately 1.5 million children experience homelessness in America each year. The current economic recession and staggering numbers of housing foreclosures have caused the numbers of homeless families to increase dramatically. The impact of homelessness on families and children is devastating. Without a place to call home, children are severely challenged by unpredictability, dislocation, and chaos. Homelessness and exposure to traumatic stresses place them at high risk for poor mental health outcomes. Despite the pressing needs of these children, federal policy during the last decade has focused primarily on chronically homeless adult individuals-to the exclusion of the families. In 2010, however, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness issued a comprehensive plan to eradicate homelessness for all people through interagency collaboration and aligning mainstream services. A key goal is to prevent and end homelessness for families, youth, and children within 10 years. This policy-focused article describes several tools that can be used to help achieve this goal, including: general principles of care for serving homeless families and children; BSAFE-a promising practice that helps families access community-based services and supports; and the Campaign to End Child Homelessness aimed at action on behalf of homeless families and children at the national, state, and local levels.

Power through Intersubjectivity: Representing the Resilient Child in Urban Survival Narratives

The problematic relationship between urban dislocation, the proscribed spaces of urban childhood, child marginnalisation and the societal invisibility of under-age citizens is widely thematised in contemporary children's literature. This article examines how childhood agency, as a form of power, becomes aligned with resilience through intersubjectivity in the narrative representations of marginalised child subjects in Virginia Hamilton's The Planet of Junior Brown (1987) and Julie Bertagna's The Spark Gap ( 1996 ). Depictions of child homelessness, which construct resilience in the determination to survive experiences of marginalisation, dislocation and loss, offer an opportunity to examine representations of child subjectivity. This discussion centres on the role of intersubjectivity as an alternative construction to some humanistic frames that privilege the notion of an individual agency divested of childhood's limitations. It identifies the experiential codes which more accurately reflect the choices available to young readers, where liminal spaces of homelessness that first establish social and cultural dependencies are re-interpreted through depictions of relational connection among displaced child subjects. The discussion suggests that these multifocal novels construct dialogic representations of social discourse that affirm intersubjectivity as a form of agency.

Legal responses to child protection, poverty and homelessness

Removal of children from the care of their parents is one of the most fundamental forms of intrusion the state may have in the lives of families. Those experiencing poverty are disproportionately targeted for intervention by child protection departments. This article reports on the results of two research studies that provide empirical evidence regarding the relationship between child protection and poverty. The links between child protection and poverty are well-documented. However, our research supports the view that existing knowledge is not being effectively translated into practice. Respondents to our research offered a number of practical suggestions as to how protective outcomes may be brought about for children living in poverty. In particular, their recommendations emphasise the importance of the provision of material assistance and support in building the capacity of families to adequately provide for, and protect, their children.

Transformation of the California Mental Health System: Stakeholder-Driven Planning as a Transformational Activity

This study describes strategies developed by California counties to transform their mental health systems under the 2004 Mental Health Services Act (MHSA). This voter initiative places a 1% tax on annual incomes over $1 million; tax monies are earmarked to transform county-operated mental health services into systems that are oriented more toward recovery. MHSA implementation itself can be considered "transformational" by balancing greater standardization of mental health service delivery in the state with a locally driven planning process. A qualitative content analysis of the three-year plans submitted by 12 counties to receive funds under MHSA was conducted to identify common themes, as well as innovative approaches. These 12 (out of 58) counties were chosen to represent both small and large counties, as well as geographic diversity, and they represent 62.3% of the state population. This analysis showed that the state guidelines and local planning process generated consistency across counties in establishing full-service partnerships with a "whatever it takes" approach to providing goal-directed services and supports to consumers and their families. There was, however, little convergence around the specific strategies to achieve this vision, reflecting both the local planning process and a relative lack of clear policy and guidance on evidence-based practices. There are many obstacles to the successful implementation of these ambitious plans. However, the state-guided, but stakeholder-driven, transformation in California appears to generate innovative approaches to recovery-oriented services, involve consumers and family members in service planning and delivery, and build community partnerships that create new opportunities for consumers to meet their recovery goals.

Transformation of the California Mental Health System: Stakeholder-Driven Planning as a Transformational Activity

Transformation of the California Mental Health System: Stakeholder-Driven Planning as a Transformational Activity

Between Salvation and Liquidation: Homeless and Vagrant Children and the Reconstruction of Soviet Society

Homeless and vagrant children were one of the most visible and traumatic consequences of the Soviet experience of World War Two. They were living testimony not only to the physical destruction and hardship of a merciless war fought largely on Soviet territory but also to the ideological fractures in the Soviet system. The latter's doctrine of happy Soviet childhoods had to give way in the face of hundreds of thousands of needy and often delinquent and disobedient children. This article examines the rhetoric that surrounded the problem of child besprizornost' and beznadzornost', analyses Soviet society's responses to both the phenomenon itself and to official policy dealing with the phenomenon, and reconstructs the world in which these 'non-Soviet' children of the post-war era lived. It argues that it was precisely the high expectations of 'perfect Soviet childhoods' that prevented the acknowledgment of post-war trauma and led to the ideological and physical exclusion of those who did not fit the narrative of quick integration and salvation. Ultimately, the way the Soviet system and society related to the problem of child homelessness and delinquency reveals much of the political and ideological contradictions that were characteristic for the late Stalinist years, yet also indicates how the central and defining Soviet device of integration through discriminatory exclusion was resurrected and maintained in the decades to come.

Looking for Child Psychiatric Nursing—Vietnam 2005

In Vietnam, child health services are primarily focused on nutritional and developmental concerns. Child mental health issues, including homelessness, adolescent suicide, and sex trafficking of children, are not currently governmental priorities.

Russia's abandoned children: an intimate understanding

Acknowledgments Introduction: Entering the Doorway to Abandoned Russia Institutionalized, Neglected Orphans Victims of a Failed System, or Cold Cultural Beliefs? Many Forms of Abandonment Moscow's Homeless Children The Lure of the City Domestic Violence Contributing to Child Homelessness by Tatyana Sudakova and Sally Stoecker Options for the Abandoned Child Their World Still With Secrets and Sorrow Appendix Endnotes Bibliography

Державна доповідь про становище дітей в Україні за підсумками 2003 року Проблеми бездоглядності та безпритульності дітей

Державна доповідь про становище дітей в Україні за підсумками 2003 року Проблеми бездоглядності та безпритульності дітей

Homeless children and education: an evaluation of the Stewart B. McKinney homeless assistance act

Children are the poorest group of Americans, and among those most devastated by poverty are homeless children. Numerous problems associate with homelessness for children, including academic problems: Homeless children tend to perform more poorly in school, repeat grades more often, and drop out of school more often than do other children. Risks at each stage of a homeless child's development contribute to this poor academic performance, which engenders tremendous costs for homeless children and for society. This paper explains the provisions and evaluates the worth of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 in relation to the education of homeless children. The act upholds lofty principles, but there are crucial flaws in the act itself and in the enforcement of the act that critically undermine its worth. Based on this evaluation, recommendations for policymakers are offered.

FACTORS AFFECTING SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT COMPLETION FOR WOMEN

Substance abuse by women is considered an individual pathology, and the larger social processes of recovery are seldom explored. This research study examined social factors that influenced completion of an outpatient women-centered substance abuse treatment program. The treatment records of a group of 15 women who completed the program were compared with a group who did not complete the program. More completers had previous life successes in the areas of education, job skills, and employment history. Completers also had fewer children, less involvement with child protective services, and lower levels of chaos, a construct that included the presence of two of any of the following in women's lives: child protective services, homelessness, psychiatric diagnosis, or domestic violence. Completion of substance abuse treatment seems more likely for women with personal and social resources. If programs are to be successful, adequate funding must be provided for both assessment and support of the social problems encountered by the most vulnerable women.

L'assistance sociale à la délinquance juvénile dans la Russie soviétique des années 20

Dorena Caroli. The social treatment of juvenile delinquency in Soviet Russia during the 1920s. This article studies the decriminalization of juvenile delinquency in Soviet Russia during the 1920s. Contrary to most European countries which treated juvenile delinquency within the framework of the judiciary, after the revolution, Soviet Russia initiated an administrative handling of child homelessness and juvenile delinquency carried out through social care services. The author was able to retrace the evolution of the commissions in charge of minors' affairs throughout the 1920s from legal sources, archive documents and the concrete cases appended to this article. These administrative commissions' role was to implement the Bolshevik state's medical and pedagogical measures, thereby depriving the judiciary of this function. One can make out three distinct stages in social policy regarding child homelessness and juvenile delinquency during the 1920s. The first, which corresponds to War Communism, was characterized by a centralized administrative modus operandi. After NEP, this changed into a joint administrative and judiciary operation. During the third and last stage, which corresponds to the collectivization and forced industrialization era, the commissions were bereft of real function, contenting themselves with divulging communist pedagogical information.

The Evolution of Soviet Adoption Law

This article traces the evolution of legislation affecting adoptive relationships in the USSR from the promulgation of adoption law in 1926 until its reform in 1968. The author argues that reforms in adoption law and legal practice mirrored political and ideological developments in Soviet history. Outlawed in 1918, adoption was reintroduced in 1926 as a stopgap response to the overwhelming problem of child homelessness, with the law taking shape in a climate hostile to the family. Consequently, adoption law did not even attempt to replicate biological relationships. Attitudes toward adoption changed in response to post-1936 profa mily policies, as well as in response to problems created by World War II. By the time Soviet lawmakers revised the law in 1968, adoptive and biological families had been given legal equality.

Homeless Children in the Schools: Educational Considerations

The educational needs of homeless children are important to address in the schools. This article provides a foundation for counselors to ensure that homeless children's needs are being attended to through (a) defining homelessness and the consequences of homelessness for children, and (b) describing pragmatic means for interventions.

Street children in North and Latin America: Preliminary data fromproyecto alternativos in Tegucigalpa and some comparisons with the U.S. case

The decade of the 1980s witnessed a dramatic transformation in the character of homelessness in the United States and elsewhere in the developed world. Whereas in previous decades the U.S. homeless were predominantly older, largely white, brokendown alcoholic men (or at least were stereotypified as such), today a sizable fraction are women and children. Indeed, women, children, and youth now comprise more than three-eighths of the total homeless population of the United States (Wright 1989). As the U.S. homeless have come to be comprised of proportionally more women and children, so have they come more and more to resemble the street populations of the Third World, where homelessness, family disorganization, exploitation, and abandonment of children have become increasingly important problems during the past decade.

Home and Homelessness in the Lives of Children

An analysis of the impacts of diverse forms of homelessness in children is presented and the specific roles that homes play in people's lives. The significance of settings to social, emotional and cognitive development of children is outlined. The roles of personal space and personal places are considered including territoriality and place identity. A conception of person/place attachments is offered based on the role of lifestyle, home and neighborhood attributes, affiliations with others and the temporal patterns of these relationships. Implications for homeless children are addressed.

Constantly Compromised: The Impact of Homelessness on Children

This review summarizes the small body of research and literature to date that focuses on the specific effects of homelessness on children. In each of the major areas surveyed—health, development, and education—studies reveal that homeless children are not simply at risk; most suffer specific physical, psychological, and emotional damage due to the circumstances that usually accompany episodes of homelessness for families and children. The article concludes with a brief consideration of the research and policy implications of this research.