Beyond the Coat Drive: What do youth experiencing homelessness REALLY need?

Nikevia Thomas:

Thank you everybody. Good afternoon and welcome to MAEC’s Are ALL the Children Well? 2.0, Session One, Beyond the Coat Drive: What do youth experiencing homelessness really need? We are delighted that you are joining us. Please, as you come in, feel free to type in the chat, your name, the organization you represent, and the state you’re from. There we are. Welcome Tom from Montana. Welcome. Cynthia from Idaho. San Antonio, Lily. Welcome everybody.

It’s nice to see where everybody’s coming from. I think I just saw Nebraska. Wow, welcome. Georgia, Washington State, Philadelphia. This is amazing. Please keep sharing where you are from and we’re going to move on. We have a full agenda, as I said earlier. We are MAEC, the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium and we are champions of innovation, collaboration, and equity. You’ll learn a little more about us later on, but let’s get down to covering the basics so that we can begin today. So for webinar etiquette, please use the chat box to engage with other participants and we recommend that you click on the chat icon on the bottom or top toolbar of your screen. We will not use the raise hand function for participants. There will be a Q&A towards the end. Well, we’re hoping that we have enough time for that, but that we anticipate that we will. Please type your questions in the Q&A section and we will work to get those answered for you. Thank you. So close captioning is already enabled by default.

You should already see it on your screen too. Turn it off on your webinar controls, at the bottom of your Zoom window. Select “Live Transcript” or “Closed Caption” button and then select “Hide Subtitle.” If you want to view them again, follow the same steps and select “Show subtitle.” Next slide. Thank you. So it takes many minds and many hands to make the webinar happen. I would like to introduce you to our webinar support team. We have Ian, who is a Data and Evaluation Consultant with MAEC. And Ian is working on the Operations and Tech Support for our webinar today. There is me, Nikevia, I am the Virtual Event Planner for this webinar and I am a Senior Specialist for MAEC and not pictured here is Mariana Stepniak. Mariana is a Content Specialist with MAEC and Mariana is live tweeting for us on Twitter and I would like you to meet your facilitator for the day.

Her name is, excuse me, her name is Rita Perez. Rita is a Senior Education Equity Specialist with MAEC and the Program Mctanager for CAFE or the Collaborative Action for Family Engagement. Her work with CEE includes providing technical assistance and training for state departments of education, districts, and schools to improve educational opportunities for all learners. In her role as Program Manager for CAFE, she provides staff management, budget oversight, and liaisons with the Maryland State Department of Education and the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Rita’s lifelong commitment to educational equity focuses in the areas of systemic school improvement, professional development, teacher and principal effectiveness, instructional and school climate practices and teacher leadership. She has served diverse learners, families and communities throughout her career. It is my pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Rita Perez. You’re on mute, Rita.

Rita Perez:

Thanks Nikevia, it wouldn’t be a webinar if we didn’t have you on mute for sure. If we could have the next slide please. I’d like to review the agenda with everyone. Thank you. We’re going to start obviously with welcomes and introductions. We’re going to have an overview of homeless education. Then we’re going to have a really great conversation with panelists. I’m excited to hear this. We’ll have a Q&A as time permits and then we’ll have a closing. Next slide. Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium. I’d like to give you some background on it. We were founded in 1992 as a nonprofit dedicated to increasing access to high quality education, culturally diverse, linguistically and economically diverse learners. MAEC or “Mac” as we’d like to call it, envisions a day when all students have equitable opportunities to learn and achieve at high levels, and our mission is to promote excellence in equity and education to achieve social justice.

We believe that all students deserve to be welcomed, respected, and safe at school and provided with opportunities to thrive. Next slide please. Thank you. This webinar is brought to you by both CEE (the Center for Educational Equity) and CAFE. CEE operates in 15 states and territories through the support of the Department of Ed and we are [the] statewide family engagement center from PA and Maryland. As this image shows, we serve school districts and state educational agencies through CEE, from Maryland through Kentucky, as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. And CAFE is a statewide family engagement center for Maryland and Pennsylvania. Next slide please. Our objectives today are one, to understand the impact of homelessness on student achievement and access to education. We’re going to identify youth homelessness crisis and services that the SchoolHouse Connection provides. And finally, we’re going to learn about the barriers students face and the supports they found most helpful.

So what do youth experiencing homelessness really need? Next I’m going to introduce to you our panelists, our moderator and panelists. This is very exciting for all of us, to have folks from SchoolHouse Connection with us. Jordyn Roark, Director of Youth Leadership and Scholarship. Jordyn holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and she currently serves as the Director of SchoolHouse Connection’s Youth Leadership and Scholarship program, a national scholarship program for youth with experiences of homelessness. Jordyn was an unaccompanied homeless youth in high school and college and decided early on that she would dedicate her personal and professional life to serving other youth experiencing homelessness. In her current role with SchoolHouse Connection, she provides direct support to scholars throughout the United States and supports them as they share their lived expertise to strengthen policy, practice, and perspectives. Our first panelist, Anthony, is a SchoolHouse Connection scholar.

Anthony is 22 years old and born and raised in San Diego, California. He’s an upcoming 2023 graduate of UCLA where he will receive a Bachelor’s degree in Communication and Sociology. Anthony experienced foster care and homelessness as a child, teen, and young adult. Throughout the last four years, Anthony has dedicated his time to advocating for children and youth experiencing homelessness at the local, state, and federal level and educating providers and decision-makers regarding how best to serve this population. He’s thrilled to have the opportunity to speak and learn from the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium panel attendees.

Conrad is also a SchoolHouse Connection scholar. Conrad is 19 years old and currently residing in Miami, Florida and he’s originally from New Orleans, Louisiana. Conrad is currently a first year student at the University of Miami studying architecture. He hopes one day to become a licensed architect and real estate agent. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with friends, going to the beach, and traveling.

And our final panelist, Tara, is 22 years old and is also a SchoolHouse Connection scholar residing in Florida and originally from Maryland. Tara’s interests lie in creative design. Tara enjoys working with different types of media and visual perspectives and appreciates bringing simple thoughts into something others can see and feel emotionally. She hopes to continue working on her career as a free agent, bringing important ideas into perspectives. It is my pleasure to turn over the webinar to Jordyn and the panelists.

Jordyn Roark:

Thank you so much, Rita. We are so excited to be here today. I’m going to move a little quickly through these first few slides so that I can give as much time as possible to our panelists. All of these slides will be available to attendees post-webinar though, so you’ll be able to reference back. I want to first talk about what SchoolHouse Connection is. We’re a national nonprofit working to overcome homelessness through education. We do this by providing strategic advocacy and practical assistance in partnership with schools, early childhood programs, institutions of higher education, service providers, families and youth. Our website is schoolhouseconnection.org and there you’ll find up-to-date research, data, resources and opportunities to learn and engage in better serving children and youth experiencing homelessness. You’ll also find information regarding our national scholarship program for students who’ve experienced homelessness and that application opens on June 12th of this year.

Lastly, there’s a signup button on our website for a weekly newsletter where we share our most up-to-date research, data, resources and opportunities. So I encourage you to sign up for that if you’re interested. Moving forward, we’re going to set the stage for what youth homelessness looks like in our country before we break it down in our panel. The pre-K–12 school system identifies students, therefore collecting national data. What that national data said in the 2020-2021 school year was that 1.1 million pre-K–12 students experienced homelessness. An important thing to recognize with this data point is that it’s the students that were identified and what I’m sure all of us know is that not all students are identified. So this number is likely much larger than. The next slide, we’re going to talk about the McKinney-Vento Act. The McKinney-Vento Act is a federal law that is in place in all school districts and it works to ensure the identification, enrollment and success in school, including preschool for children and youth experiencing homelessness.

So it provides things like immediate enrollment if a student didn’t have a birth certificate, immediate access to free and reduced lunch, transportation resources. This law was passed in 1987 and it was last updated in 2015. Now when we’re talking about this 1.1 million number and we’re talking about these pretty critical resources, the question may come up, who are we serving? How do we define homelessness? There are a few federal definitions of homelessness and the one that we’ll be using today and the one that the McKinney-Vento Act uses is the federal education definition. It defines homelessness as lacking a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residents. And this includes sharing the housing of others due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason. This is often referred to as couch-surfing, doubled up, staying with family temporarily or friends. It includes living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to lack of alternative adequate accommodations.

It also includes, next slide please, staying in emergency or transitional shelters, public or private places not designed for or regularly used as accommodations. Cars, parks, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations or similar settings. And it includes unaccompanied youth and migrant students who are in these situations that I just talked about. Now, unaccompanied youth are youth who are without a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence, but they’re also not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian. And what we know is that many youth have to run away from home to flee abuse or neglect or they’re forced out of their home for sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, or another reason. Next slide, please. The next piece I want to talk about is the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. This survey was distributed nationally to high school students and we’re just going to cover a few of the data pieces that came out of it and this was just released last week.

So in 2021, 2.7% of US high school students said they experienced homelessness and 1.7% were staying with others temporarily. We also know that Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska Native and Black youth were more likely to experience homelessness. Now we also know that based on the McKinney-Vento data, which is separate from YRBS. McKinney-Vento Act also shows that Hispanic youth are overrepresented in this population. Next slide please. We know that LGBTQ+ youth were two times more likely to experience homelessness compared to their heterosexual peers. And then we know that high school students that are experiencing homelessness are two to four times more likely to experience violence. And you can see here that 28.5% experience sexual dating violence, 31.9% physical dating violence and 27.6% sexual violence by anyone. Lastly, we know that high school students experiencing homelessness are at a much higher risk of suicide. We know that they are two times more likely to consider suicide or make a suicide plan, three times more likely to attempt suicide.

So all of these are really heavy risk factors and we also know that chronic health problems, trauma and mobility are also risk factors. And collectively, all of these things we see that play out in our school system with high rates of chronic absenteeism, double the rates of punitive discipline, lower graduation rates, and other barriers that students face within our schools. We also know that the lack of a high school degree is the greatest single risk factor for young adult homelessness. The greatest single risk factor. So what all of this data tells us is that students that are experiencing homelessness are really struggling to access and succeed within our school system and the resources that we provide are critical because we also know that education is key to overcoming homelessness. So the question then becomes what barriers are our students facing and what resources do they need to navigate them?

That’s what we hope to answer in our panel today. But one last thing I want to share is that on our website we have a new initiative, we partnered with the University of Michigan and we have a data search tool. So if you’re curious what child youth homelessness looks like in your local community, your local school district, at your state level, at the national level, or even within your congressional district, you’re interested in doing advocacy work. You can find that on our data profiles. You just click and search by whatever it is, whatever area you’re looking to search. Then it’ll pull up all of the data that’s available for children and youth that are experiencing homelessness. That’s it for our overview. We’re now going to talk to our panelists. You all heard their bios. They’re absolutely incredible young adults. They have worked extensively with SchoolHouse Connection to advocate and educate policy makers, providers at the local, state and national level to help to better serve children and youth experiencing homelessness.

And I am so grateful that you three were willing to be here today and I’m so excited to hear what you have to say because I know that it’s going to be really impactful. And with that, let’s kick it off to give you all the rest of the time. You all got these questions ahead of time, so you know what’s coming. But the first question that I’d like to give you is to set the stage for our attendees. And that is can you each describe your experiences of homelessness?

Conrad:

I’ll go ahead and start. Hi everybody, my name is Conrad. I’m only 19 years old, but I have quite the story to tell. I first experienced homelessness at the age of one year old after Hurricane Katrina destroyed my family’s home and we had to relocate. That period of homelessness lasted roughly seven years and during that period I also lost my father. My household lived with various family members with no stable structure or income. I later experienced homelessness again at the age of around 10 years old when my mother and my stepdad’s drug addiction worsened. And we were constantly evicted from rental homes and forced to live in either our car or hotel rooms. That period of homelessness lasted two years before my mother’s drug addiction finally took her life and I was forced to live with my brother. He took me into his home with him and his family. Homelessness caused me to live in a state of poverty because my family lived in our vehicle.

We did not have access to running water and electricity, therefore we were more vulnerable to health problems, for hygiene was not a daily task. Being homeless was the product of my parents’ mental instability. So I had to mentally nurture them as well. This inevitably made me struggle with my own identity. If I was the person that my parents came to with their problems, then who was I to go to with my problems? My homelessness was evident to members in my community and school and at times I felt judged and mistreated for my living situations. Being African American in a predominantly white community made it difficult to find access to resources to improve my standards of living. Having to physically and mentally support my family’s needs also made it difficult to focus on the needs of myself.

Jordyn Roark:

Thank you for sharing.

Tara:

Hello, my name is Tara. I am 22 years old and the first time I experienced homelessness, I was around five years old. My family had been living in a mobile home in [inaudible], Maryland and it was around the time where it wasn’t normal to insure mobile homes like that because they weren’t necessarily considered homes. So my father had built a bunch of additions onto our house to make it a little bit bigger because I had two siblings and my mother as well living in the house. And around 2005 our house caught fire and we lost everything, which was the first time we experienced homelessness together as a family. Moving forward, we really didn’t live any normal life together since. We all moved amongst family members or friends that were in the area. And then around 2007, 2009, my siblings moved out and I was the only one left in our living situation. And moving forward, we would squat in places, we would live in places and would be evicted.

My father would offer work so that we could live in certain places, which is often like sheds or places that don’t have running water or heat. And then moving forward, my parents, I guess losing drive from everything that life has happened to them, their addictions developed further. And around the age 15, I ran away because of the trauma that I’d been experiencing. And I had recently experienced an overdose of someone who I considered a father. And from there we went our own ways and I lived my life and I’ve been on my own since.

Anthony:

Thank you guys. My name is Anthony. I’m 22 years old also. And I faced homelessness and the foster care system on and off throughout my early life. And I really started to recognize my experiences of homelessness. In middle school, I would say when I was living with my dad and my younger brother and we were evicted from our apartment. And from there we found ourselves living in my dad’s girlfriend along with her kids, and then jumping from motel to motel, living in family members’ living rooms, and the whole nine for the next few months. And during these times I saw my dad go through phases of alcoholism, drug abuse, and I found myself often taking care of my little brother and trying to be the role model for him that he needed. So for the next few months I faced that state of homelessness and eventually reentered the foster care system. For my second time and shortly after that, I was done with my time of homelessness and facing the foster care system.

Jordyn Roark:

Thank you all three of you for being willing to share that. What you went through, I mean you three in particular and what we see for a lot of young people is that homelessness starts really early on with your families and then you can end up re-experiencing homelessness on your own or with your families again as you get older. And that trauma is just compounding upon itself. And the barriers and traumas that you were facing outside of school easily could have caused you to drop out or not be successful within school. I mean to focus on anything beyond survival at some of the moments you talked about is truly incredible. And so what I would like to ask is what support did you receive in your education and in the community that was helpful? What kept you enrolled in school despite all you were going through?

Conrad:

Well, I was identified as homeless by my community and by my school, they noticed it. I didn’t receive much help from them. My parents relied on food stamps and social security money from my dead father to support our family. Mentally, I did receive valuable support from my friends at school. I made friends with intelligent, like-minded people who valued education and relationships like I did. I believe that my friends that I spent my time with in my early childhood gave me the optimism that I have today. In my later educational career I did in high school, I had a wonderful school counselor who helped me get to where I am today and to the University of Miami.

Tara:

Within my administration, in my earlier years, I would say before high school started, I moved too often for really anyone to help because I wasn’t around for them to truly asked me questions. Once I got to high school though, I had a good community of at least a few teachers. And then the people that I was friends with, my peers, they were really helpful with contributing to just keeping me kind of where I was and not out of school, which is a big thing that people who, or students who struggle with homelessness. That’s kind of our biggest thing is we don’t really have the same resources as everyone else to get to where we need to be. And so within the administration, the people who were able to notice the things that were happening to me and not necessarily just kind of shove it onto a different department, they actually took their time to get to know not only my problems, but the things that I needed in order to kind of navigate around those things.

Because a lot of the things that I was facing was not having parents around that could sign papers or not having transportation to school, being late on things, not doing well for tests because I didn’t have time to study. So a lot of the help that I received was just basically the understanding of my situation and them allowing the leniency that I needed to be the student that I knew that I could be if I had the same opportunities as everyone else.

Anthony:

For sure. I think with my time being here with SchoolHouse and looking at my experiences in hindsight, I can say for myself that I’ve recognized the lack of supports that I’ve received. And I think due to not really internalizing or considering myself as a homeless youth and my dad and my family not really wanting to identify us as a homeless family, we lacked the support we needed in many settings that probably could have benefited us in our living situation. So really aside from Section 8 and food stamps, we didn’t really receive much governmental support throughout my years of homelessness.

Jordyn Roark:

Thank you. I have a few little follow up questions. Conrad, I’m curious quickly, what were some of the things your counselor did, once you got that counselor that was helpful? Was there anything they specifically did that that helped you the most?

Conrad:

It was honestly her son. He inspired me. They went through a lot of trauma his early childhood and he went to LSU and he was very successful with engineering. So she told me her story and kind of inspired me that I can still do things that I want to do and make a life for myself.

Jordyn Roark:

That’s awesome. And then Tara, I was wondering, you hinted at it a little bit, but you said your administration started to notice that you needed support, you might need that leniency. Is there anything that they should have picked up on that they didn’t or anything that they did really pick up on that other educators could look out for?

Tara:

I would say just the first thing was my absences. I really had a hard time getting to go school because I lived in such a country area where school was 30, 40 minutes away from me. And most buses don’t, you have one stop within 10, 20 miles of you and if you don’t have or get there, then you’re not getting to school. So my absences was the first thing where they were like, what is going on here? And I had issues with it at first until I was able to one, get identified as an unaccompanied youth, which came later, I was around 15 years old. But before that it was just them asking these questions and then pushing it onto a child protective services worker or the guidance counselor who had so many students on their roster that I never really got around to. So just really them being able to see that I wanted to do the work and that I was putting the effort in at school, but then when I wasn’t at school, there was a disconnect.

Jordyn Roark:

Got it. And then Anthony, I was wondering, you mentioned that your family was kind of didn’t want to be identified as homeless and that that restricted the resources you received. Looking back and knowing what, is there anything that your school could have done to still connect you to McKinney-Vento Act resources or a conversation that could have had? Is there anything that would’ve connected you to those resources sooner?

Anthony:

Yeah, for sure. I think it would probably just have to be specific people, counselors and people that are aware of what are the signs, what are the consistencies throughout youth that are facing situations like this. So if I would’ve had somebody like that, that would’ve pointed me in the right direction, that probably would’ve been my resource.

Jordyn Roark:

Got it. And we also, we often hear that if students knew that being identified by McKinney-Vento doesn’t mean an automatic like DSS call or it doesn’t mean, that kind of thing. So that makes a lot of sense. The next question kind of speaks to what Tara was starting to get at, which were the barriers that you faced. So what barriers did you face in accessing and succeeding in your education, like transportation, how Tara mentioned.

Conrad:

For me as a homeless youth, I was actually unaware of the McKinney-Vento Act. I did not receive much financial help from my liaison. This support could have benefited my family and I with basic needs such as food and water that we sometimes did not have. I did not receive any support in receiving therapy or counseling at all considering the amount of trauma that I was facing as a child. This trauma including homelessness and the death of my parents, the mental support could have definitely supported me and helped me with internal issues that I was facing at such a young age.

Tara:

I would say just realistically, well, financially, kind of what was going off of was just we don’t have money and there are not a lot of resources, nor do we know what resources we have available to us as students. And like you were saying earlier, Jordyn, how a lot of it is just based on survival. So it’s hard to identify as homelessness because you’re constantly going after this idea that if I keep working harder or I keep reaching out or I do my best, then maybe I won’t be in the situation that I’m in. And realistically, when you’re in a certain state of poverty, you will never be able to get past that without the resources and the help of the communities around you.

So I just think overall more access within the community and the understanding of what is going on in the definitions that are at hand because there’s a lot of information that doesn’t get circulated. And then if it does get circulated to certain areas, it’s not leaving an office area. And so unless you’re going to the office which requires you to be at school, you’re not going to know any of the info that there is.

Anthony:

For sure. Just to kind of piggyback on what everybody else has said so far, I think school and receiving my education was sort of my getaway during these times of being in the foster care system and facing homelessness. But even through that, it was obviously exponentially more difficult to receive a good education and succeed in this educational journey. So I think having disabilities, lacking the support systems on my school’s campus, and then obviously not identifying the struggles that I was facing along with dealing traumas and not having a counselor or therapist to talk to about these situations were just some of the barriers that I faced while in elementary school and in middle school.

Jordyn Roark:

Thank you. So we talked about the supports you did receive. We talked about the barriers you faced. Now I want you to think about those barriers and think about what supports could have helped. So whether they existed in your school system or not. In an ideal world, what supports could have helped you navigate those barriers you just talked about?

Conrad:

I think that my school could have definitely scrutinized my situation a lot more. They could have been more involved with social workers and therapists. On many occasions, we did have social workers come to the home and they would check the refrigerator and say, “Okay, they have enough food in their refrigerator.” Then they would go into our closet and say they have clothes and then they would leave. They missed the amount of drugs that was floating around my home. They missed the neglect of our animals. And if they would’ve just maybe scrutinized the situation a bit more and provided more support to us that way, I think that could have definitely benefited that situation.

Jordyn Roark:

So maybe asking more questions, like being willing to meet with you at school and ask you what your home life was like.

Conrad:

Sure.

Tara:

To kind of tie on what Conrad said as well, just the fact of when we are trying to come to school and be students, it’s hard for us to not, I’m sorry, I’m losing my train of thought. I’ll just jump from my next point. I think that funding overall should be something that is focused more on. I know that it’s not an aspect that we necessarily get to see all firsthand because we are students, but I think the fact of the matter is that there are liaisons and there’s certain things that are in place already within our schools, but the resources and the funding and the amount of work they have on their own case is a lot. And they’re not able to give the students that they have within their communities the things that they need because they are so overworked.

So I do think that there needs to be more funding in place of the actual systems that we have because navigating these issues by ourselves is not easy and we don’t necessarily know the questions that we can ask. And we are scared to ask certain questions like Anthony was saying, because we don’t want to have a child protective service come into our house and then them say things that are untrue or they don’t even help. And it just puts us in a more difficult situation because we are already dealing with so much stress and trauma with the situations that we already have in our house.

Jordyn Roark:

You and Conrad both, it’s like I wish that someone would’ve sat down with you and explained that whether the resources were expensive or not in your communities because as you mentioned, Tara, there’s a huge lack of funding. But it seems like had someone really sat down and built rapport with you and let you know what resources were available. Because I know Tara, you mentioned how you didn’t even know what the options were, that that could have made a big difference, it sounds like.

Tara:

I definitely think that if I would’ve known a little bit more, and also in my earlier years, even before high school, because at a certain age you want to protect your parents and you want them to love you and be there for you. But the unfortunate cases, there are some parents that lack the ability and life sometimes kicks us down. It’s hard to get back up. And so for our parents to try to provide for us when they literally are not able to, it’s hard to separate those situations and then also have someone come in and help us navigate that as well as children.

Conrad:

That was a hard thing for me as well. It’s like when they’re not reaching out to us, we don’t want to reach out to them because we don’t want to necessarily rat out our parents. I don’t want to go to them and tell them that my parents are doing drugs in the house. I’m trying to protect my parents. So at some point they have to reach out to us.

Jordyn Roark:

I’m glad you flagged that, Conrad, because I haven’t, I was planning to look at the Q&A box at the very end and I will for the most part so your attendees know, but I did just notice one that came in that said what kind of outreach would’ve worked for you all? What could a liaison in your school district have done, whether it be hang a flyer, talk to your teachers, invite you into the office. Thinking back to younger you, what would have reached you outreach wise?

Conrad:

Maybe not coming directly to me, but maybe like you said, a teacher or a counselor, somebody I have felt more comfortable talking to.

Jordyn Roark:

So educating the whole school, all the staff at the school so they know that they can point students to the liaison.

Tara:

And I would say just something that I’m working with for the school that I previously went to, I’m trying to get it going. But for back to school night or any papers that you send out or information that the students need to be getting, more than likely kids whose parents aren’t as active in their life, they’re not getting this paperwork. We are getting the paperwork. So if you can slip information in, it doesn’t necessarily have to be anything like damning or you have to come tell us this, but letting people know the resources within the community and that they were available if you want to come seek them. And maybe having an option of it being anonymous as well so that there’s a comfortability of knowing that we have a stance of not just letting our whole card show and then putting ourselves in a jeopardizing place.

Anthony:

I think just piggybacking off what everyone else has said, Conrad made a good point that just allowing teachers to people that we’re more comfortable with, staff that we’re more comfortable with in our school space would be beneficial in many forms. And I think just allowing them, even though this isn’t their job, oftentimes in this educational space, these are the only people that can recognize that we’re going through these situations as we’re there five days a week. So I think allowing teachers to make their space vulnerable and allowing students to speak up when they’re facing adversity, giving them opportunities to do so. And then just kind of highlighting the bullet points throughout the school year that define someone as homeless. Oftentimes I didn’t recognize or even realize that because I didn’t have a home or because I was able to stay with a family member, that meant I wasn’t homeless, but I was. So I think oftentimes youth are facing these misfortunes and these hardships, but just don’t really realize that there are resources available.

Jordyn Roark:

Anthony, I also wanted to go back to that last question. So in addition to better education of staff members and spaces to be identified, were there other supports that could have helped you navigate the barriers you faced?

Anthony:

For sure. I think that one resource that we’ve mentioned is McKinney-Vento and having a liaison, having a designated person to kind of direct me in all these varieties of resources would’ve supported my situation so much because throughout my 18 years of education, all 18, I would’ve been available for these resources.

Jordyn Roark:

Absolutely. So we’ve been talking about K-12. I want to ask one question about higher ed. Even if our attendees are K-12 staff, we know that those that are in students’ lives their senior year of high school are critical to helping students figure out what resources could possibly be available on their college campuses. So with that said, what supports do you all feel are most critical in higher education?

Conrad:

I personally think that financial support over holidays and breaks is very necessary. I was lucky enough to have my brother take me in, but he is also raising his own family at the same time, and he has to financially support his own daughter. So at some point, it’s up to me as an adult to support myself financially. And some resources could be helpful for finding housing over the summer or over these extended holidays like Christmas and spring break. So that’s a big one. Another one was getting to college, I found it very difficult to obtain legal documents. In order to get financial aid to get me to the University of Miami, I first had to send in a series of documents proving that I was an orphan and I was the first in my family to go to college.

So it was very difficult to first figure out where do I get these documents, then I’m going to hunt to find my parents’ death certificates, which no student should have to go through. So finally I figure out where I get these documents at, and then I have to pay a couple of hundred dollars just to obtain these documents. So that was definitely a struggle and I feel like I could have used some more support for that as well. And then finally, counseling services, that’s another one. Again, we faced all this trauma throughout our lives and finally we’re off to college and we have this opportunity to make a change for ourselves and it is a difficult time to navigate. So counseling services is another support that could be helpful.

Jordyn Roark:

Absolutely. I want to pull out a couple of pieces of what you said. So someone put in the chat box, they were asking if you could provide more context on what you needed over breaks. So I know you mentioned literal housing or funding to get housing. What else would you possibly need? Let’s say the University of Miami would let you stay over winter break and there was housing. What would you need over winter break other than physically a place to stay?

Conrad:

Maybe more financial support for things. Just food, shopping, grocery, grocery money. Transportation is very expensive where I live, so that’s another expense. Mainly just those type of expenses. Maybe some resources to find jobs. I’m looking for internships. This is all new to me as a first generation college student. So just support.

Jordyn Roark:

That’s great. I think a big piece is just even knowing the dorm’s going to close in December. I know when I went to college, I had no idea until November that my dorm is going to close. And I was like, wait, I have to go somewhere for a month? So I think even just knowing that is helpful. But I fully agree with everything you said. And then I wanted to pull out your mention of financial aid and FAFSA and just mention to attendees that there’s been some FAFSA changes for unaccompanied homeless youth. Don’t have time to talk about them today, but there’s actually a webinar going on right now with SchoolHouse Connection and the Department of Education on the new FAFSA changes and it’s recorded. So that’ll be on our website soon. And I would encourage you to check that out if you’re a provider working with young people. And with that, we’ll keep going with this question and it was, what support do you feel is most critical in higher ed?

Tara:

One, I would start as well with saying financial, any type of financial help, whether it be physically financial help, helping us pay for things or the actual just financial advocation. A lot of us are just kind of doing this on our own. And I don’t know if they allowed liaisons on college campuses. We didn’t have one in mine. But when I had to go in for my FAFSA or anything that had to do with me living on campus because I moved thousands of miles away from where I lived originally, I had no one to really talk to. And then there was not really anyone that was informed on what unaccompanied youth meant, what paperwork actually meant that I didn’t have to turn in certain paperwork. Because I turned in the legal documentations that I had and then it was just kind of hearsay.

They were like, ‘what is this?’ So the lack of information, I think overall and just having to navigate that world was really hard. And that I would say as well, counseling services. I was so far away from any support system. I don’t really have much family to begin with, but being from such a small town and then I went to a place where the population is almost 50 times what I lived near, it was really hard to navigate. And then also just being someone who had just gotten away from so much trauma and now I’m just expected to be an adult and go to class and be there always. So it was just really hard. So I think that any support on campus that can help the students even just further from homelessness, because I think the homelessness is an issue, but we need more help on the students.

Jordyn Roark:

I’m really glad you brought that up. There are some states that have higher ed liaisons, so California’s one. So state colleges in California, they have a higher ed liaison. It’s a little different than McKinney-Vento, but it’s a person on the college campuses and that person knows what an unaccompanied homeless youth is. And they help them, and Illinois too, in the chat. There’s states that have these higher ed liaisons and we are hoping that one day that’ll be national and that all states will have those because having someone that understands and is knowledgeable about the resources would certainly be helpful. Thank you, Tara.

Anthony:

Everything that everybody has said is factual evidence. And I think for me, as a fourth year with months to go, I can mention just some of the support systems that I found, small on-campus organizations that support youth in our situations. For example, Guardian Scholars. And understanding FAFSA. A counselor is so necessary, I wouldn’t have been able to understand this financial aid experience, applying my scholarships to where they need to go, figuring out my money situation just in general. Course counseling, having an understanding, counselor that’s specifically reading out your DARS and your report so that you can successfully graduate on time and take the courses that are actually necessary. And just other support systems here and there specifically, I think it’s people, you recognize those that are understanding, those that are weary of first gen students, students that have faced tribulations such as us that can support you.

Jordyn Roark:

Anthony, will you tell us a little bit more about Guardian Scholars for those that aren’t familiar?

Anthony:

For sure. So I know that most UC campuses probably nationwide, there are Guardian Scholars organizations, programs here on campuses that support homeless and former foster youth. They provide a variety and array of resources of events, financial aid support. They have counselors that they provide for you to look at your enrollment. They also give you abilities to recognize disabilities and make sure that in classes that professors recognize that you may need more time for certain stuff. And another thing, as Conrad had mentioned, something that Guardian scholars provides is on-campus housing through breaks, summer breaks, spring break, and winter break, which is something that is so necessary for us that don’t have housing outside of this institution.

Jordyn Roark:

Thank you, Anthony. So you have Guardian Scholars is, to my knowledge, California-based and not all programs accept youth experiencing homelessness. Some are still just foster, but some schools like UCLA and San Diego State, they accept both foster and unaccompanied homeless youth. I had Anthony share this example because even if you’re not in California, there could be programs like that in your state. And sometimes we only know what we know. And so what I’ve learned in my time working with our scholars is that a phone call to a university can make a world of difference. I usually will try to call some kind of student support office or the counseling office or admissions. And I’ll say, “Hey, I’ve got a student that needs X, Y, and Z support. What can you guys offer?” And it’s important to do this early because sometimes programs like Educational Opportunity Program, EOP, that’s available in a lot of places, that offers summer bridge programs a lot of times. That housing can be really helpful between high school and college and it can provide that support. EOP deadlines are really early.

They’re like, I think, fall of senior year of high school or something like that. So I say that to say that even if Guardian Scholars is not available in your area, it is so good to build those relationships with your local colleges that your students tend to flow to so that you can connect them with those resources.

Cool. Colorado and Indiana too. I’m not super familiar with Guardian Scholars. I would definitely suggest everyone look into it, but it has been helpful to many of our students. With that, let’s keep scooting forward. This question is a little similar to the past ones, a little different, so feel free to see if you have anything else you’d like to share. What can schools and community organizations like afterschool programs, for example, do to better identify the needs of students experiencing homelessness and provide the adequate support? So I want you to think outside of your school system a little bit. So you can talk about the school system too, but I want you to think what community spaces would’ve benefited you or even after school spaces at your school. I know someone in the chat mentioned a support group or something at school.

Conrad:

I think it all starts back again with what I mentioned before, them scrutinizing the situation a bit more and asking those questions and maybe that can relate to them providing that afterschool support or my church was very involved with trying to provide financial support. So it first starts with them asking the questions to actually understand the situation, not them going above and beyond to just saying, “That person’s living situation is okay.” Because that’s what they do. A lot of times they’re like, “It’s just enough to where they can live.”

Jordyn Roark:

And Conrad, you mentioned that you felt judged in your community, but you had a really supportive friend group. Is there any space in your community that would’ve felt safe and doable for you if you were offered some kind of weekly after school program or other community-like space?

Conrad:

Definitely like a space where I could be with my friends. I didn’t really have that where I lived. So some type of after school activity, maybe some, I wasn’t really involved, that cost money of course to be involved in sports and extracurriculars. So some type of space where I could just be with my friends, couldn’t be at my house with my friends, I would usually go to their house.

Tara:

I think creating a flexible environment for students to come, it allows them to feel more comfortable and safe. Having structure can be really helpful, but I also feel like having too much structure can feel rigid and it is just added pressure to everything that we are already feeling. And while I think it’s important to want to try to identify and pinpoint students who are in unhealthy environments, I think providing the resources and the information that they need to be able to, one, evaluate their own situations and realize what they’re going through isn’t normal and showing that it can change through different resources and help. And then also two, showing the resources that they actually have that you can connect them with in order to actually get them what they truly need.

Jordyn Roark:

Tara, will you talk about SHIP some? Are you comfortable with that?

Tara:

So I worked with SHIP when I was around, well, I first met them when I was 15. I had a lady who was named Ashley. She was kind of my connection to all of it. And then I ended up meeting the head of it. His name was Ed, and he’s very nice man, but SHIP is basically shortened for Student Homeless Initiative Program. It was in the state that I was in, Maryland. I don’t know if they do anything outside of Maryland, but they basically helped me connect myself one, with the McKinney-Vento and understanding all of that process. And then also one, with my policy, I’ve been doing policy in all of this reform for pretty much since then, and they gave me an access to being able to make money and also supporting myself within it, which was really helpful because financially I was supporting myself at a really young age. But they also just gave me a really just nice environment to be in, which was really hard because I felt like in the other areas of my life I was pretending to be this perfect student so that no one asked me any questions. And I did soccer. I did everything I could just to seem normal. And they were the only group of people that actually made me feel like I belonged somewhere truly who as I was without having to act like I was something I wasn’t.

Jordyn Roark:

Thank you. And Anthony.

Anthony:

I think I’m good on this question. Thank you.

Jordyn Roark:

Not a problem. Attendees, we’re about to get to probably our last question, unless I think there’s some follow up ones. Please put your questions in the Q&A box and I’ll be reviewing them and hopefully getting to a few of them. The last question is, if attendees only remember one thing about homelessness and education, what should that be?

Conrad:

I’ll definitely say that higher education is some students only ticket away from neglect, abuse, and poverty all related to homelessness. Therefore, the more support provided for these students, the more likely these students are given that chance at life.

Jordyn Roark:

Thank you.

Tara:

I would just say to be open to the idea that maybe all the answers won’t come immediately. I think that we need to understand that this is a growing problem and like Jordyn said, there’s 1.1 million of us in just this country, and that is a growing number. I know that there are friends of mine that at a young age were not identified, and they struggle now to this day. Being willing to listen to different perspectives that are represented to you as often as you can, really as much information as you can absorb as a person and just trying to understand things because we don’t necessarily understand everything that we need. And I think that as adults, we were always looking forward to someone being able to be like, “Hey, these are the things that we can help you with because we know that you are struggling with them.” So as much as you can be aware and be paying attention is helpful.

Anthony:

For sure. Just to piggyback off Conrad, I think higher education is oftentimes the one outlet for us youth facing struggles. I’ve found myself grateful throughout my four years to just have this desk to work on, to having opportunity to have housing throughout these past four years and just have all these different opportunities to network and to grow and blossom beyond the path that I’ve faced.

Jordyn Roark:

And you’re about to graduate. So exciting. Attendees, I would like to challenge you, I’m about to start doing some Q&As. I would like attendees to drop in the chat what’s one thing that stuck out for you during this panel? What’s one thing you’re going to take away? Whether it be something that was just shared or something earlier. In the interim while attendees drop in the chat, my first Q&A question that you all can take a second to think about is what’s something that you wish people knew that they often get wrong about youth homelessness? So I want you to take a second and think about it and then raise your hand if you would like to respond.

We’ll give about 20 more seconds and then we’ll move on to another question. If no one has any response to this one, which is totally okay, seeing some awesome responses in the chat box. Thank you so much everyone for sharing.

The next question that I have is if a teacher or a staff member notices that a student is struggling, how can they best approach that student and offer support? So I know Conrad, you mentioned something I think is really helpful for this question is utilize the people the students have rapport with. I think all three of you mentioned that, utilize the teachers and those, but is there anything else you all can share regarding if the teacher notices or someone in the school notices, how can they approach the student? What should they do, Tara?

Tara:

I think that just connecting with a guidance counselor… If you have a guidance counselor within your school system and maybe running the idea through them at least just to have touch base with another person just because they do have a little bit more rapport with understanding how to deal with emotions of students. But I also think if there is a certain student that you’re worried about, anyone that they’re super close with or they spend extra time with. I had one teacher in high school who I spent all of my time with and anyone who, if I was missing where I was because he was just always there supporting me and taking care of just the little things that I didn’t know how to navigate as a student. And he really helped me advocate for myself early on. So finding people who they are connected to, if you do have a student that you think is struggling, it can be helpful if they already know the person.

Jordyn Roark:

Thanks. I saw Alice put in the chat box, confidentiality can get tricky. If a student says something to a teacher and the teacher’s like, “Oh, I think they need help. Should I go talk to the counselor?” I think use your best professional judgment, but it’s also really good to have the student involved in every process of their support system. So I think for me, if I had a student approach me that I thought needed some external help, then I would let them know that I think that we could benefit from having a shared conversation with this external person and talk to them about who that person is and what that person can help with and any risks associated with talking to that person and then move forward from there and involve the student in the whole process versus having to go behind the student to talk to the counselor first, I think was kind of that chat question. No problem, Alice. Thank you. So I think we are nearing the end. If anyone else has any other Q&A pieces to submit in the Q&A box, feel free. And panelists, I want to give you one last chance if there’s anything final you want to share with attendees, and it’s okay if not, but I want to hold the space. Tara.

Tara:

I just saw in the question box question specifically for me, so I just thought that I would answer it now. They asked how my medical needs were supported and that most doctors [ask for] parental consent and how you were navigating that. It was a big struggle. Fortunately enough, we were all quite poor and my parents still applied for certain government assistance, so I was able to keep my insurance for the most part. The only issue was I had to call and get parental consent, but then once I got my unaccompanied youth form and got all that financial stuff straightened out, it was a lot easier to navigate that thing. But then again, it did come much later in my life. So I was around, when I got my official paperwork, I think 16, turning 17, and I was almost 18 by then. So then I can make my own choices. So any earlier would be helpful, but it is really hard for us to navigate that as well. And in Maryland, they’re doing a lot of different things like trying to move certain policies through that allow youth to advocate for ourselves like in shelters and hospitals, just so that we can give our own go, especially if we’re from an environment that puts us at risk if we contact them.

Jordyn Roark:

I also want to flag that we have information on our website regarding minor consent laws. So there have been some state laws that have passed that increases unaccompanied homeless youth’s access to medical care. So please visit our website if you’re interested in learning more about that. It breaks it down by state so you’ll know what your state provides. I will let you know that just like with McKinney-Vento, not everyone knows what the state law is, so you may be able to help advocate for your student. If you see that your state has a certain law and then you go to the doctor’s office and they’re like, “Never heard of that,” you can show them our website and help to advocate in that way. Any other final thoughts? Tara, was your hand up before or did you put your hand up again? I don’t want to ignore you.

Tara:

I put it up again, but I wanted to let everyone else talk before I just kept on talking.

Jordyn Roark:

I think they’re thinking. You go ahead.

Tara:

Another question that I saw was: “Would be creating a support group for students at school be helpful?” I had a very anonymous group. We have a, for my school study session in the middle of our day, so it’s about 30 minutes. So that’s when our group would meet. We would be sent passes from the office and it was basically a group that touched base with students that they knew were struggling that came from a household, which specifically was just for us, was drug-based and substance abuse. So it gave us an opportunity to come talk in a group setting, kind of like a group therapy with people who were professionals and they were able to give us navigation and help us with our emotions. But also outside of that, gave us communities during the summertime we could go do summer workshops and stay with them for a whole day if we didn’t have a place. They would feed us. They would give us extra money to get home, Ubers. So things like that was really helpful in my youth just to keep me within the community, keep me with people who were on the straight and narrow.

Jordyn Roark:

That’s great. I also saw someone put in the chat box, it’d be great if we had these perspectives for professional development. We at SchoolHouse Connection are in the process of launching a module system that you can use your ARP funds for, and we have youth voice built into that module system. So it’s very similar to this, but it also has our staff talking about McKinney-Vento. And the idea is that it’s to be used for professional development and information regarding that is on our website as well. Our hope was that it would be helpful for you all. So we tried to make it as accessible and easy to use as possible. Any other final thoughts? Panelists, please read the chat box because there are so many messages to you all flowing in right now. Anthony, you got something?

Anthony:

For sure. I think just a simple thank you to you guys. You are saying thank you to us of course, and we appreciate it. But I think I can say for myself and for my panelists that we appreciate you guys for allowing us this platform to share our experiences. And I think having this space to combine thoughts and to provide each other with resources will only better the situations for us and hopefully benefit the future generations of youth in higher education in places of need.

Conrad:

Thank you guys.

Jordyn Roark:

And I’d also like to mention that this kind of thing can be replicated. You could find students in your local communities that are either already engaging at advocacy or in education, or maybe they want to. You could talk to your liaison and see if there’s any students they’re really close to that would want to, like Tara’s doing right now, work with her district and really talk about this nitty-gritty of what her experience was like. So I really encourage you and challenge you to take away from this that you could recreate this with young people in your local community. And with that, I will turn it over to Rita. Panelists, if you have any final, final thoughts that pop up, feel free to drop it in the chat box. And thank you all so, so much for your time. And thank you attendees for your willingness to be open and listen to us.

Rita Perez:

Thank you Jordyn, and to Tara, Anthony, and Conrad. I was hoping to be able to make this through without sounding like I’m going to cry but I might. Your stories were powerful and amazing and I’m so in awe of your resilience, perseverance, and wanting to go out in the world and make life better for yourself, but also for others. And so I commend you for that. Thank you so much. We have, thank you to all the attendees as well and for all of your wonderful comments and questions, they’re amazing. Our contact information is on this slide. You can use the QR code to access a feedback survey, which is very important to us so that we can always work to continually improve our services and our webinars for us. We also have it in the chat box and I can stick it back in the chat box one more time just to make sure folks have the chance to do that. Thank you again everyone. On behalf of everyone at MAEC, CAFE and CEE, we really appreciate your attendance.