No Place Like Home: Using Date to Promote Family Unity
Homelessness has particularly detrimental effects on the development of adolescents and leads to increased stressors in families. In the United States, the number of children and young people that are homeless on any given night has been estimated at around 1.3 million (National Runaway Switchboard, 2009). The state of Minnesota made an effort to tackle youth homelessness by adopting the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act in 2016, which is explicit family policy because its objectives are deliberately structured to affect minors and their families. According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services (2015), this bill requires the commissioner of human services to report on any homeless …show more content…
But meanwhile, we have a lot of kids who are suffering and we need to do something about that now” (Ohio State University, 2008). It is critical to begin collecting better data in order to put together a more comprehensive picture of how youth are being assisted in each system and to identify which services they are accessing. There are many agencies in partnership with runaway youth, but law enforcement currently stands to be one of the most effective systems required to report on homeless teens. This is largely because police officers are often first in contact with unaccompanied youth through their involvement with street outreach programs. If a child has run away from home, the police can take them into custody under a number of circumstances. According to the Minnesota Handbook, Options for safety and stability: Being a homeless youth, an officer can even accompany the youth to their parents or to another adult family member who can care for
Homelessness has particularly detrimental effects on the development of adolescents and leads to increased stressors in families. In the United States, the number of children and young people that are homeless on any given night has been estimated at around 1.3 million (National Runaway Switchboard, 2009). The state of Minnesota made an effort to tackle youth homelessness by adopting the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act in 2016, which is explicit family policy because its objectives are deliberately structured to affect minors and their families. According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services (2015), this bill requires the commissioner of human services to report on any homeless …show more content…
But meanwhile, we have a lot of kids who are suffering and we need to do something about that now” (Ohio State University, 2008). It is critical to begin collecting better data in order to put together a more comprehensive picture of how youth are being assisted in each system and to identify which services they are accessing. There are many agencies in partnership with runaway youth, but law enforcement currently stands to be one of the most effective systems required to report on homeless teens. This is largely because police officers are often first in contact with unaccompanied youth through their involvement with street outreach programs. If a child has run away from home, the police can take them into custody under a number of circumstances. According to the Minnesota Handbook, Options for safety and stability: Being a homeless youth, an officer can even accompany the youth to their parents or to another adult family member who can care for