Are ALL the Children Well? A Community of Practice Part Two

Kailanya Brailey:

Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to day two.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

Good morning.

Kailanya Brailey:

As you come in, if you will be sure to access the Padlet. You’re going to answer the question, what is one thing you learned from yesterday? We’re so glad that you all have joined us again for day two of our community of practice work. If you would access the Padlet and answer the question, what is one thing you learned from yesterday? That Padlet link is located in the chat.

I see that we’ve got some people still coming in. As you enter, if you would access that Padlet link from the chat and answer, what is one thing you learned from yesterday? Welcome back, we’re so glad you all are here.

We are going to give at least one more minute. I see some people still coming into the waiting room. We want to give you an opportunity to access the Padlet and answer, what is one thing you learned from yesterday? Those of you who just joined us, welcome back to day two of our community practice work for Are ALL the Children Well. If you’d access that Padlet, what is one thing you learned from yesterday? We’ll take about another minute. That Padlet link is located in the chat for you.

All right, it is 10:03. In the interest of time and because we’re so excited to get to work, we are going to go ahead and get started. Again, if you just came in, the Padlet link is in the chat for you to answer one thing you learned from yesterday, but we’re going to go ahead and start on day two of Are ALL the Children Well? A Community of Practice.

Today is a bittersweet day for us. We started this work back in May and today is the last day. It is the final part of our four-part student homelessness education and family engagement webinar series, and so our work is concluding on this webinar, but we are excited for all we have learned and all that we’re going to try to do as the school year goes on. Again, welcome, thank you all so much for being with us. We are excited for what you’re going to produce today.

Again, I’m Kailanya Brailey, I’m a senior education equity specialist with the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium. I’m happy to pass it on to my co-facilitator, Jessica.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

Thank you, Kailanya. I’m Jessica Webster, and I echo all of Klan’s sentiments. We’re excited to be here with you today and put some of our learning into action, which, as those of us in the education field know, that’s extremely important for us, to take the learning and then how do we apply it. That’s what today is all about.

Real quickly, I’d just like to go over a little recap of what we did yesterday, for anyone who was joining us just for today that didn’t join us yesterday. Yesterday, we had the pleasure of learning about the McKinney-Vento Act and the detailed roles and responsibilities of schools and providers to assist our students who are experiencing homelessness. You can find resources from yesterday in our Padlet for your reference and for future use.

Today, in our day two agenda, on the next slide please, we are going to be taking all that learning and putting it into action with our community of practice, which we will explain momentarily. We’ll begin by learning about the National Center for Homeless Educations Needs Assessment, and then we’ll spend most of our time evaluating our own practices in the spirit of continuous improvement.

Next slide please.

Just a few quick reminders before we get started, on our webinar etiquette. Please use the chat box to engage with other participants. We recommend that you click on the chat icon on the bottom or top toolbar of your screen. There will be time for a recap and any questions and answers towards the end of the webinar, so please put any questions you want to the panelists during the Q&A section, please put them in our Padlet like we did yesterday, under the What I Wonder section of the Padlet. We’ll continuously share that link out with you, but we encourage you to keep that open on a separate tab during our training today.

Next slide, please.

Again, live captioning is automatically turned on for participants. If you do not wish to have live captioning on, you’ll need to follow the directions on the screen. Please go to the webinar controls at the bottom of your Zoom window, select live transcript or closed caption button, and then select hide subtitles. Again, if you’d like to turn them on later, you just reverse the process by going to live transcript or closed caption and putting them back on.

Next slide, please.

Kailanya Brailey:

We know that we shared this information with you yesterday, but it is incredibly important to us that we continue to frame why we do the work that we do and who we are. This webinar is brought to you by both CEE and CAFE. CEE, our Center for Education Equity operates in 15 states and territories through support from the Department of Education. CEE is one of four regional equity assistant centers funded by the Department of Education under Title IV for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. CAFE, our Collaborative Action for Family Engagement, is a project of MAEC and a statewide family engagement center for Maryland and Pennsylvania. CAFE helps build sustainable infrastructure to support healthy family, student and community engagement. CAFE serves all educators from state agencies to school districts, to school staff and early childcare providers and families to promote high impact culturally-responsive family engagement.

Next slide, please.

Let’s take a look at our day two objectives. For our work today, we intend to audit current policies and practices used by your school, district or organization to support students and families experiencing homelessness, and you will create an action plan to support the needs of students and families experiencing homelessness. Very excited about our work today.

Next slide, please.

Our key terms are located on that Padlet of resources that you have. We’re not going to read all of those, but we do encourage you to refer to the key terms on the Padlet for definitions related to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, and particularly how that act defines homelessness.

Next slide.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

Okay. Yesterday, we took a moment to evaluate some descriptions and definitions of a community of practice. We completed a word cloud, where we asked all of you to share with us the words that really stood out for you from each of those definitions. As you can see, we wanted to just ground ourselves back in those norms for our community as we move forward today. Some of the words that really stood out to everyone are the biggest ones on the screen, words like commitment, reciprocity, I love that word, community, that it’s voluntary, we’re all here voluntary today, that it’s ongoing, that there’s participation by everyone, that we can change the direction the community of practice goes in based on the needs of the community, that there’s sharing and passion in all that we do. We’d like you to take those words with you and the thoughts from our word cloud as we move forward.

Let’s dive in. Next slide, please.

Those of you that were with us yesterday know how much you learned from Tisha yesterday, and we’re going to start by grounding ourselves in that work. Tisha’s joining us again today, yay. Just a quick reminder that she is a program specialist at the National Center for Homeless Education. Before that, she’s served in education as a school counselor, an administrator. She comes to us with a wealth of information and a deep, deep wealth of information when it comes to supporting students with homeless education. She’s going to kick us off with a description and an understanding of the needs assessment that we are going to be using in our breakout rooms. Tisha, thanks for joining us for day two.

Yatisha Blythe:

Good morning, thank you so much. I’m glad to be here with everyone again today. As Jessica just stated today for our content, we are going to look at assessing the needs of homeless children and youth. Before we get started, we will set some context for some of our attendees who maybe didn’t have a chance to attend on yesterday, or just to give us a little refresher about homeless children and youth.

We can advance to the next slide.

Before we get into our content, I do want to talk to you just briefly about the National Center for Homeless Education, NCHE. We operate the US Department of Education’s Technical Assistance and Information Center for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth program. If you’re not familiar with us, please take some time to check out our website. We have a comprehensive website with a wealth of information and there’s something on there for everyone. There’s something on there for youth, there’s something on there for education stakeholders, there’s something on there for community stakeholders and for parents as well. We do have a help line, you can call our toll free number, or you can send us an email to our homeless@serve email inbox.

There’s also a great deal of resources that are available, a lot of products, such as posters, pamphlets, brochures, briefs, there’s some that are free for print and download. Then there’s also some resources that we have on our site, some products that are available for purchase that can be shipped to you. If you’re interested in joining our Listserv, you can do that as well from our website, from the link on the screen. Then if you’re a social media person, please follow us on Twitter or on Facebook.

Again, I am YaTisha and I’m a program specialist with the National Center for Homeless Education. If you find that after our time today you have some direct questions that you’d like to send to me, please feel free to send those to my email address that’s listed at the bottom of the slide. Thank you to those of you who sent feedback and comments and had questions yesterday. I enjoyed reading those. It was my pleasure to speak with you individually via email. I do appreciate that.

Let’s set up our session for today. In our time today, we’re going to get an understanding of the needs of homeless children and youth, again, just a brief little refresher from some of the things that we talked about on yesterday, and then we’ll also look at what the McKinney-Vento Act mandates for local education agencies, also known as school districts. Then we’ll look at what the purpose is of a needs assessment, why are they important, why should you conduct a needs assessment?

Then we’ll have the second half of our time to have some group learning and discussion. You guys will be placed into groups that you’ll be assigned to. I think our facilitators did their best to assign folks by region, but we’ll get some more instruction on that just a little bit later. Then there’ll be some time for group debrief, where you guys will just share some of the things that came out during your group time and learning together. We’ll talk about some next steps and some planning. Then we’ll look at some essential NCHE resources that will be helpful to all of you beyond today and for sustainability as you go into your different arenas of work, whether it be in education or whether it be in the community. Then, if time permits, we’ll have a final Q&A.

Okay. To set some context, yesterday, we did talk briefly about the needs of homeless children and youth. We all know that homelessness definitely impacts education. With homelessness or the homeless experience, it can cause some barriers for students. These barriers can actually impede their learning, because with homeless children and youth, we know that these are children who are housing insecure and they may not have access to things that their housed peers do. The most basic areas of needs for homeless students are their basic needs, their health needs and their educational needs. These children and youth may be lacking not just a home, but they may not have access to food and nutrition, they may not have clothing, shoes. They may be missing hygiene items, school supplies, backpacks, even a book to read at home for when they want to enjoy reading.

These are also the children and youth who experience some trauma. Some of them had traumatic experiences prior to the homeless experience, but the homeless experience within itself has some trauma infused in it. There’s that experience of losing your home and losing all of your belongings and worrying about where you will stay. Even some homeless children and youth report they worry about their parents during the day while they’re at school and are my parents safe throughout the day while I’m at school. They also have medical needs and dental needs.

Then on the education side, these are the children who are coming in to register for school and they may be missing birth certificates. They may be missing a health assessment or their immunization records. Just to let everyone know, I think I stated this yesterday, but for those who may not be aware or did not get a chance to attend, students experiencing homelessness cannot be denied enrollment if they’re missing a birth certificate or immunization records or a health assessment.

Also, as an educational need, they may be lacking a space to do their homework. They may have poor attendance. If the parents are trying to work out a permanent housing solution, it may require the children to miss school sometimes. Their attendance may be irregular, they may even be chronically absent. Then also, particularly for our high school students, they may be lacking some credit accrual for any coursework that they have satisfactorily completed in their previous school. Also, we do know that trauma can be misdiagnosed as a special education need, but truly, some children and youth experiencing homelessness do have some undiagnosed special education needs as well.

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All right. Just as a refresher, or to inform those who are not aware, we’re going to look at the McKinney-Vento definition of homeless one more time. Homeless children and youth who are lacking a fixed regular inadequate nighttime residence are considered to be children who are eligible for the McKinney-Vento homeless education services. These are those children and youth living in housing situations where they may be doubled up because they are now having to share housing with someone else, it could be a family member, could be a neighbor, could be a friend, could be anyone. They’ve lost their housing, they’re sharing housing due to a loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason.

These are also children and youth who may be living in motels, hotels, campgrounds, and trailer parks, domestic violence shelters, transitional living shelters, emergency shelters, and may even be abandoned in hospitals by their parents, or they could be unsheltered, living in a public or private place that’s not designed for dwelling or not typically designed for sleeping accommodations for human beings. Then also we know that families who may be living in their cars or sleeping in parks or abandoned buildings, bus or train stations. Then also migratory children who live in any of the above situations.

Under the federal McKinney-Vento Act, there are some requirements for LEAs. Again, LEAs are local education agencies or school districts. LEAs are required to ensure that homeless children and youth are identified by their school personnel and also through coordination and collaboration with other agencies. I just want to highlight, that has a lot to do with why we’re here today, because we’re going to talk about needs assessments and we’re also going to look at the importance and the significance of inter-agency collaboration, especially with community partners and education, or LEAs.

LEAs are also required to enroll children and youth, enroll them immediately if they’re experiencing homelessness, and ensure that they have full and equal opportunity to succeed in school, as well as ensure that whatever educational services they are eligible for, those are provided to them. This also applies to children who are in public preschool programs, that zero to five age group. Then it’s also a mandate or a requirement that parents, guardians and unaccompanied youth are informed of the educational rights of children under McKinney-Vento. Then any related education opportunities or support services that are available to them, they are required to be informed of those.

Next slide.

There’s also a requirement for public notice. I love the makeup of our attendees that have been with us yesterday and today. We’ve got a great mix of folks from the education side, as well as the community side. This too helps raise awareness. That public notice of educational rights and ensuring that it’s disseminated, these are ways for the public to be aware of the rights of children and youth who are experiencing homelessness. They’re McKinney-Vento rights. Some school districts have posters, print media, they have a high social media presence. These are all ways to ensure there’s awareness around the McKinney-Vento education rights for homeless children and youth.

Another requirement is that when a dispute occurs, and yesterday we did talk about disputes, disputes are when there’s a disagreement about enrollment, identification, school selection, between a parent or guardian or the unaccompanied youth and the school, there is a requirement that those disputes or disagreements are handled according to the law, but also expedited as quickly as possible.

There’s also a requirement to inform parents, guardians and unaccompanied youth about transportation services. We also talked yesterday about when it comes to transportation, transportation cannot be a reason to deny a student their McKinney-Vento homeless education rights. It can’t be, “We’re not going to identify you because we’re short staffed in transportation. We don’t have enough drivers,” or, “That distance is a little longer than some of our other routes.” Again, transportation cannot be a reason to deny enrollment. Then also, LEAs are required to look at their policies, their procedures and their practices to make sure our barriers are removed to the enrollment and retention for homeless children and youth, as well as ensuring that those policies and practices do foster equitable outcomes for students.

All right. Now, we’re going to talk briefly about the needs assessment. Again, why are needs assessment important? Why should you conduct a needs assessment? A needs assessment is very essential for any LEA, for any school, for any program, for any agency to look at and understand the uniqueness of the needs of their staff, their students, whomever is being served. Since we’re talking about homeless children and youth, the needs assessment is essential into looking at what the unique needs are of the homeless children and youth that are being served.

It helps to locate areas where improvement is needed. It also highlights what the strengths are of the LEA or the school or the program or the agency. It’s essential to identifying what resources are available and then giving you some actionable steps to prioritize activities that will allow you to invest time where those gaps are, and then you can look at what the outcomes are so that you can see how reorganizing and prioritizing these activities can make the biggest difference. It also creates a process for reviewing any data that you have or any data that you have access to, as well as documents. Then it also communicates the needs by giving that evidence and that authority for you to stand behind.

Our school-based needs assessment, I believe it’s available in Padlet where the other resources are. What we’re going to … The next one, there you go. Thank you. With the school-based needs assessment, and I know you’re hearing the word school-based, you might be thinking, “Okay, that doesn’t apply to community,” but it actually does. We’re going to look at that inter-agency collaboration as well. This needs assessment has two sections, the first section is the Welcoming School Culture and then the Support for School Success. Under that second section, for school success, there’s work there for educators as well as community partners.

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In section one, that Welcoming School Culture, some guiding questions for you to think about as you’re working through the needs assessment. Think about how does your school feel? What does your school feel like? As a former district level administrator, walking into schools, you can feel the culture and the climate as soon as you walk into the building. What does your school feel like? That applies to agencies, that applies to a program within the school or a program within the agency. What does it feel like? Do registrars or frontline staff or social workers, do they discreetly discuss living situation with families or with you? Are staff and students and parents made aware of the McKinney-Vento definition, the educational rights? Those posters that we just talked about, social media resources, or are there pamphlets or brochures?

The second section is Support for School Success. Some guiding questions for that section are what are some of the protocols in place for McKinney-Vento eligibility and identification and enrollment? Again, if they’re experiencing homelessness, they need to be identified and enrolled immediately. Is there a designated homeless liaison for your school? There should be. If there’s not, there should be. There should also be a designated district level person for schools. What are the resources and support for your homeless students?

Next slide.

Some additional guiding questions for this section are, do school staff members routinely participate in McKinney-Vento trainers? Are they getting trained? Are they only getting that beginning of the year refresher or are they getting some training throughout the school year to help them support the needs of homeless children and youth? Are instructional and behavioral approaches reflecting an understanding of the needs of homeless students, so being sensitive, those trauma-informed practices? What does the school leadership look like? Are there policies and procedures in place that are being updated regularly that ensure fair and equitable outcomes for students?

Okay. We will have 30 minutes of time for some group learning and discussion, and then there’ll be about 20 minutes for debrief. I’m going to go into what our instructions are for the needs assessment. If you are from the education side, and again, everyone is assigned to a team and I do believe our MAEC facilitators tried to assign everyone as close as possible by region, so you’ll be assigned to a team to complete the needs assessment, if you’re on the education side, you’re going to look at both sections of the needs assessment. You’ll just go through and answer those questions. Then during our debrief, we’ll talk about what are some of the strengths that you see in how your school is serving homeless children and youth, talk about some of the gaps, talk about some of the challenges, talk about the next steps, and then the benefits of conducting an annual needs assessment to improve services.

I will tell you before we advance to the next slide, for our breakouts, you guys, again, will be assigned to a room. I encourage you to assign someone to be a speaker for your debrief. Hopefully, all groups will feel comfortable enough to share some of the things that you worked on, but when we do come back to our main room for the debrief, I will just call on your group number or room number and ask your speaker just to share with us some of the questions from the debrief. We’ll probably go through each question and I’ll just call on different groups. You guys can use the reaction feature of raising your hand, we are going to allow you to use that today, and then you’ll be able to unmute yourself and share what your group talked about from their breakout.

There’s one more slide. Our folks in the community arena, if you’re in an out-of-school program or a nonprofit agency, please feel free to read the entire needs assessment, but you’ll mostly be working in section two under that subsection that says Collaboration With Out-of-School and Nonprofit Programs. You’ll work on answering those questions. The way the needs assessment is set up, you guys in both arenas should be able to have some good active conversation and learning around how you can collaborate together, because that inter-agency collaboration is so essential to the success of homeless children and youth.

Okay, so at this time I am going to turn it over to our MAEC facilitators. Do you have any further instructions you want to share with attendees before we move into our breakout rooms?

Kailanya Brailey:

Tisha, thank you so much again. Again, just a wealth of information. Words would fail me if I tried to capture my appreciation for all that you’ve given to this community of practice work, but just thank you for all of that information.

Yatisha Blythe:

Absolutely.

Kailanya Brailey:

We are excited to move into the work portion of our time today. If you look on the screen, you will see that we have assigned you by region, with the exception of Pearson Virtual Schools, you all will be together. We may make necessary adjustments as needed, but we are going to start with putting you in groups by region and facilitators are going to be joining various rooms to provide assistance and to serve as start partners. However, if you do have any questions while you’re working or if you need a facilitator to report to your breakout room, we are asking that you use the hand raise feature at that time and someone will be with you as soon as possible. If you have any issues with that, just alert us in the chat that you need someone to report to your breakout room and someone will report to you.

For your work in the breakout rooms, the needs assessment worksheet is located in the Padlet resources under Handouts. You are going to need to make a copy for your own use, so there’s going to be an option for you to click the blue Use Template button in the top right corner of your screen. You’re going to need to click that in order to make a copy for your own use. There’s a needs assessment and there are discussion questions for you to complete once you’ve done that assessment with your group. Again, if you run into any issues or if you have any questions or if you need a facilitator to report to you, we’re asking that at this time you will have access to the hand raise feature, but if you have any issues with that, just alert us in the chat and someone will report to you.

Jessica, do you have anything to add before we move to our rooms?

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

I don’t think so. I think we’re just excited to get you guys started.

Kailanya Brailey:

We are. At this time, you all will be moved to your breakout room space.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

As we’re getting situated, if everybody would just take a moment and offer up a reflection on the What I Learned section or your key takeaways on the Padlet. If you have any questions that you’d like us to address in our remaining moments, if we can, those should be under the What I Wonder section on the Padlet, for Tisha. If you have any, please enter them. We’d love to know what you thought upon your reflections as you move forward, what are your key takeaways, what are some things you think your team should focus on moving forward.

Then, Tisha, while people are doing that, we did have a couple comments on the What I Wonder section and I thought maybe we could jump in with those while people are thinking about their learning.

Yatisha Blythe:

Yeah.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

A really great question came across the chat today and that really had to do with accountability. People are learning and reinforcing what they know to be right to do for students who are experiencing homelessness, but in terms of families or educators, how can families hold the LEA accountable to do what they’re supposed to do if they’re not receiving the services that they know that they’re entitled to? What is due process look like for that, or what would you suggest families do as next steps?

Yatisha Blythe:

I think it varies by state. There are some districts who have a grievance process. When we get calls related to that, if they feel like there’s not been due process, or even down to those dispute resolutions, if they’re not provided with a written explanation about what’s going on and why their student may not identify under McKinney-Vento, then we encourage them to reach back out to the LEA and have that conversation with the liaison, but then also sharing of the role of the state coordinator for homeless education, they are essential as well. State coordinators do monitor the programs at the LEA level and they do provide technical assistance, but also a way to mitigate that is that we encourage liaisons, whenever possible, it’s important to have those family engagement events. Sometimes those might need to be a virtual event, it might need to be something in person, but those are great ways to have those conversations.

Another way to do that too is if you have a high shelter population or have a great partnership between the liaison and the school system and those shelter partners, going in and having small gathering, small meetings, small community engagement events, and just keeping everyone really informed and making sure you’re educating them as parents on what their rights are and what the rights are of their children.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

Thank you for that.

Kailanya Brailey:

Yes, thank you. We do have another question are, and this is pertaining to early childhood. Are there trainings or sessions focused on focusing on childcare centers, family home providers, GS 110s? I know Head Start and pre-K have access, but would love to expand this to our other childcare settings. Are you aware of other trainings or sessions that focus on childcare?

Yatisha Blythe:

I think those vary too by state, because with early childhood centers there’s different requirements. There are some states and school districts that have a mandated pre-K and then there are some that don’t. We all know that kindergarten is not even mandated everywhere. It varies by state, but there are some resources. Again, depending upon what your role is, I encourage you to reach out if you know who your district liaison is, or if you don’t know, look on their website, call their district office, find out who that person is and just having a conversation. Some liaisons work hard to have a parent advisory board.

Though, local COCs, at least in North Carolina and I know some other states are doing it too, the local COCs are doing some more work too around that family engagement piece, so making sure that liaisons are a part of the COC board and making sure that voice who can advocate for the youth is there and doing some more intentional work around making sure those services are in place for homeless children and youth. I encourage anybody, start with your liaison. That’s the person who bears the majority of the responsibilities for ensuring the LEA is doing what they’re supposed to do as well as them doing what they’re supposed to do.

State coordinators are responsible for providing TA and training. Right now, with a lot of schools restarting the school year or starting in the next few weeks, there’s probably a lot of training that’s going to be going on around McKinney-Vento and raising awareness and making sure things are in place and folks are aware in the community at large about McKinney-Vento and the services available. I know with the American Rescue Plan funding getting out to a lot of school districts, that too is raising awareness around this student population. There’s a lot of good things happening all across the country.

Kailanya Brailey:

Absolutely, thank you for that. I know we discussed sharing out takeaways from breakout sessions, but just because it’s also 11:27, can we put the survey posted to the chat so that participants have access to that as well.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

It’s extremely important and helpful for you all to take a few moments. We do review the survey data and use that to inform upcoming projects and webinar series that we do. We would ask you to just take a moment and put your comments and the learning from the last two days, how you felt about things, any suggestions for improvement into that survey for us, please. It would be really, really helpful.

Kailanya Brailey:

Absolutely, thank you.

Yatisha Blythe:

There’s a great comment that just came in about pushing for implementing federal guide. There actually is a McKinney-Vento federal guidance, and the link to that is in the PowerPoint from yesterday that’s going to be shared out with everyone. Even though the law is the law, that’s what we’re all obligated to follow, but the Department of Ed did publish a guidance that helps everybody with their understanding of McKinney-Vento and what the requirements are and what the rights are of homeless children and youth. That guidance is available, and again, that link is in the PowerPoint.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

Can we squeeze in one more question, do you think we can?

Yatisha Blythe:

Sure, sure.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

I think this is a really important one, especially because we did a four-part series on this and this question brings us back to our first webinar, it was really about out-of-school providers and community partners. The question is what, as a community partner, can they do? What can community partners do now as a first step to help provide more supports to students and families that are experiencing homelessness?

Yatisha Blythe:

Start the relationship with the LEA. If you haven’t heard from a liaison, if they’re not aware of your services, start with them, start with your local school district. Seek them out and build that relationship, because it’s that relationship that allows you to go ahead and start that inter-agency collaboration and that piece under McKinney-Vento that mandates that children are identified through collaboration with school staff in coordination with community agencies. A lot of times, referrals will come in, because again, with homelessness, people have to self-disclose. You can’t go up to people and say, “Hey, I think you’re experiencing homelessness. Let me identify you.” They have to come to you and be willing, and it takes a little degree of vulnerability to share with someone that you’re experiencing a housing crisis.

With that being said, just being able to have that conversation, because in the community arena, a lot of times you won’t know a family’s experiencing homelessness, or a child or a youth is, unless you work in an agency whose work is geared towards assisting homeless individuals. Just having that communication, establishing that relationship, that’s the first step. Then from there, from that conversation, you can talk about, okay, these are the resources that I have to offer. How can we help? What do you need from us? What do the needs of the children in this community that are experiencing homelessness, what do they look like and how can we work together to make sure those things are happening?

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

Yeah, I think that’s really important, because as a former school administrator, many administrators and counselors who are designated as the McKinney-Vento homeless liaison are wearing multiple hats.

Yatisha Blythe:

Oh, yes.

Kailanya Brailey:

Absolutely.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

It’s not a primary job, and in large, you may not even know what you don’t know about what services are available outside and you may be scrambling to find them too.

Kailanya Brailey:

Absolutely.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

To have people come and introduce themselves to you and also be proactive in that relationship goes a really long way for schools.

Yatisha Blythe:

It does.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

It does. I agree with that, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you.

Yatisha Blythe:

You’re very welcome.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

Lots of really good learning, I encourage you to look through those. As one person said, it absolutely takes a village for us to support our children. We are so grateful for you and your time with us today and yesterday, and for Tisha, for really imparting all this amazing wisdom on us and resources. We hope that you have gotten a lot out of the last two days, and we hope that you take some time to also fill out the survey. Thank you so much for joining us.

Kailanya Brailey:

Thank you all.

Yatisha Blythe:

Thank you.

Jessica Grotevant Webster:

Good luck to those of you heading back to school.

Kailanya Brailey:

Yes, have a great-

Yatisha Blythe:

Have a great school year.