CH9 WK3 Homeless Children School Attendance & Academic Performance Paper
CH9 WK3 Homeless Children School Attendance & Academic Performance Paper
no plagiarize, spell check, and check your grammar. Please only use the references below.
Determine and discuss the circumstances, both historical and contemporary, that have contributed to the problem of homeless children. Identify one example of a potential risk that could be faced by homeless children. Explain how a human services professional can most effectively tend to the needs of homeless children and their families or with runaway youth.
Read chapter 9 of the required text and view the video pertaining to homeless children in America (“America’s Invisible Children” located in the Week 3 Outcomes Required Multimedia section of your course guide) to gain deeper insight into the lives of homeless youth in America. Your initial post should be at least 300 words long.
Chapter 9– Section- Homeless Children: School Attendance and Academic Performance
Children are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population, which creates new challenges for shelters and other social welfare responses, particularly when these children are school-aged. Developing effective programs designed to keep homeless children in school and succeeding academically is essential, otherwise all these homeless children will be at risk for continuing the cycle of homelessness in the next generation, having never experienced physical or emotional security in their own childhoods.
Between the chronic and cyclical nature of homelessness and the fact that most emergency shelters limit the amount of time residents can stay, ranging anywhere from 1 to 30 days, a significant problem for school-aged children was switching schools ever time their families were forced to move to a new shelter. I recall when I was working as a school human service professional in the inner city of Los Angeles having several school-aged children who were homeless on my caseload. No sooner did these children get settled and acclimated to their classroom and start the long process of building a trusting relationship with me than they would literally disappear one day. I would typically learn at some point later that the family was forced to move to a different shelter, and even if remaining at their school of origin was a legal possibility, it was not a realistic one because there was no guarantee that that the next shelter would be anywhere close to the children’s current school.
A 2000 report to Congress stated that only 87 percent of homeless children were enrolled in school, and of these only 77 percent attended school regularly (U.S. Department of Education, 2001). Many school districts attempted to resolve this issue by creating special schools or programs for homeless children, but these programs have been criticized by many because it segregated homeless children, increasing their social stigma and sense of rejection thy no doubt already experienced. Federal legislation discussed later in this chapter was designed to address the issue and put a stop to poor attendance and student retention and poor academic performance related to homelessness.
References
Feed the Children (2007). America’s invisible children: The homeless education crisis in America [Video file]. Retrieved from https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/video/americas-invis…Links to an external site.
Gomez, E.A., & Passerini, K. (2007). Service-based crisis management: Local and global community roles and communication options. International Journal of Intelligent Control and Systems, 12(2), 198-207 http://www.ezconf.net/IJICS/files/85/final-11.pdf
Martin, M.E. (2014). Introduction to human services: Through the eyes of practice settings (3rd. ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education. ISBN: 9780205848058
