Reaching Out to and Programming for Youth in Poverty and Homelessness

Format

Workshop

First Presenter's Institution

University of Kentucky

First Presenter’s Email Address

kgoodman@email.uky.edu

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Ashurst is a Senior Extension Specialist for Family and Relationship Development. She has worked with the University of Kentucky and with CYFAR for 24 years. She works to build state-wide and national capacity for reaching underserved or at-risk children, youth, families, and communities. Kerri's primary areas of interest include families who are coping with major crises such as illness or death of a family member; positive youth and young adult development; couple communication and relationship building; military families; mental health and stress management. Kerri directs multiple grants that focus on underserved audiences and serves in a federal role through USDA coaching grants in multiple states that reach out to at-risk and unserved populations.

Second Presenter's Institution

University of Hawai'i at Mānoa

Second Presenter’s Email Address

cwlau@hawaii.edu

Second Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Sarah Yuan is a specialist at the University of Hawaii Center on the Family. She conducts applied research, program evaluation, and policy advocacy activities to promote the well-being of children, families, and communities. Dr. Yuan provides training and technical support to state agencies, organizations, and direct service providers to enhance their capacity to implement evidence-based programs and policies. She is a sociologist specializing in medical sociology, demography of aging, and survey methodology. Her recent and ongoing extramural-funded projects include community quality of life, homelessness, population aging, and substance-abuse prevention.

Third Presenter's Institution

Iowa State University

Third Presenter’s Email Address

hargrove@iastate.edu

Third Presenter's Brief Biography

Jen is a 4-H Youth Development professional in Iowa. Jennie works to deliver high quality professional development, tools for club recruitment, and a structure for a thriving vibrant club model, and leads research and evaluation efforts in positive youth development.

Fourth Presenter's Institution

University of Kentucky

Fourth Presenter’s Email Address

tcatki2@uky.edu

Fourth Presenter's Brief Biography

Tyrone is a Program Coordinator for Family and Consumer Sciences. He has worked for over 15 years in designing, implementing and evaluating more than 60 military camps. He has served as state coordinator for multiple grants focusing on underserved and at-risk populations.

Location

Session Two Breakouts (Scarbrough 3)

Strand #1

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #2

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Relevance

Children in poverty may have many mental and physical health needs that are not receiving attention and support. They also may be spending an inordinate amount of time to meet survival needs such as food and housing, resulting in insufficient time and attention to mental and physical health as well as social and emotional learning and skill development. This can have long-term, detrimental impacts that can be preventable with prevention programs that provide sufficient supports. This workshop will focus on how to reach out to and program for children and families in poverty utilizing a comprehensive approach to mental health and social/emotional support in addition to tangible and physical support.

Brief Program Description

There are many youth and families living in poverty and unstably housed who can benefit from programming we provide as educators, but they can be difficult to reach and retain. This multi-state team of Extension professionals came together because of the work we were doing to reach children and families in poverty or who were at risk of becoming homeless. We will share how we dealt with barriers, strategies for recruiting and retaining, and spotlight programs we are doing in multiple states.

Summary

During this workshop we will focus on recruiting, implementing programs for, and retaining youth who are living in unstably housed conditions and poverty. We will cover topics including the 4-H Thriving Model; resources from the Access, Equity, and Belonging National COmmittees; using a poverty lens for program implementation, evaluation, and sustainability; and the McKinney-Vento Act. We will highlight programs in Kentucky, Iowa, Missouri, Hawaii, Maine, Tennessee, Minnesota, Ohio, Nevada, and Michigan that target youth and families in poverty. This workshop will be very interactive and presenters will encourage the audience to take part in transparent dialogue about the barriers involved in working with youth in poverty and how to overcome them. We utilize the YMCA Safe Place model, combined with a strengths-based and trauma-informed lens for all programming. We will focus on a number of topics that will be helpful to the audience, including use of an equity, poverty, and trauma lens, professional development needs, national trends and research, marketing/outreach, evidence-based curriculum, creating safety and belongingness, social justice, and more. We will also move the audience into dialogue about a true strength-based focus, including empowerment and voice, protective factors, barrier removal, resilience, supportive environment, and normalizing mental health needs. We will weave competencies needed to engage youth in poverty into the discussions, especially focusing on understanding how implicit social bias affects our work with youth who are experiencing poverty or homelessness; developing inclusive programming and policies that better reach these underserved youth; and cultivating partnerships with entities and organizations in your community to provide more effective outreach for youth in poverty and homelessness and to serve as a support system for one another.

Evidence

  • Children that live below the poverty line are 1.3 times more likely to have developmental delays or learning disabilities than those who don’t live in poverty (Currie, n.d.).
  • 8 million children live in high poverty neighborhoods (defined as 30% or more of the population are living in poverty). Concentrated high poverty neighborhoods negatively affects all kids living in the area – not only children in low income households but those who are economically better off (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2017).
  • In 2017, 18% of children (13 million) lived in families with incomes below the poverty line. This rate fell from 21% (15 million) in 2015 (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2018).
  • In 2018, 1.36 million students (1 in 38 students) were identified by schools as youth experiencing homelessness.
  • While rural and urban youth experience similar rates of homelessness, subpopulations of youth, specifically youth of color, parenting youth, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth are at a disproportionately higher risk for experiencing homelessness include LGBTQ youth (120%), as well as African American (83%) and Hispanic (33%) youth.

Learning Objective 1

Participants will be able to more effectively recruit and engage youth in poverty and who are unstably housed into programming

Learning Objective 2

Participants will be able to better locate strong community partners for collaborative youth programming

Learning Objective 3

Participants will be able to incorporate interactive and creative activities into youth programs that engage the youth and establish trust.

Keyword Descriptors

children and families, poverty, homelessness, safety, mental health, social emotional learning

Presentation Year

2023

Start Date

3-6-2023 1:00 PM

End Date

3-6-2023 2:15 PM

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS
 
Mar 6th, 1:00 PM Mar 6th, 2:15 PM

Reaching Out to and Programming for Youth in Poverty and Homelessness

Session Two Breakouts (Scarbrough 3)

There are many youth and families living in poverty and unstably housed who can benefit from programming we provide as educators, but they can be difficult to reach and retain. This multi-state team of Extension professionals came together because of the work we were doing to reach children and families in poverty or who were at risk of becoming homeless. We will share how we dealt with barriers, strategies for recruiting and retaining, and spotlight programs we are doing in multiple states.