Effects of Homelessness on Children

Effects of Homelessness on Children

Introduction

According to Parsell (2018), homelessness refers to a situation where families lack proper housing, which is mainly caused by inadequate programs concerning housing assistance. The significant causes of homelessness include poverty, which puts the parents in a position where they cannot pay for housing frequently, making them formulate difficult decisions that will match the family’s income. Other factors include family violence, politically related issues, health care problems, mental illness among family members.  During such moments, children between the birth period and eight years are usually at the risk of being homeless. In such instances, their growth development, health, and educational achievement are also put at risk leading to their developmental delays. According to Stewart and Townley (2020), most children living in countries with weak economies are prone to homelessness due to the destitute-like environments that end up subjecting the children to survival for the fittest life, and most children lose the battle to morality.

Effects of Homelessness on Children:

Development: Siddiqi, Irwin, and Hertzman (2007) assert that early child development is an essential factor that influences the future behaviors of a child. The event involves emotional, social, cognitive domains, and physical influences. Therefore, the initial exposure that a child receives from an environment is an excellent determinant of the child’s life course and trajectories. Siddiqi, Irwin, and Hertzman (2007) also posits that through such recognition, there is a need to ensure that all children are subjected to healthier environments since the disparities in the child nurturing have a significant effect to the society. In such a situation, when a child has been subjected to homelessness during early childhood development, it reaches a time when they become a threat to the society’s sustainability and peace as they try to find their own peace

Learning: In most instances, education is disrupted when families become homeless. Sandel et al. (2018) suggest that when homeless families face financial constraints, young children might be forced to drop out of school. In research by Siddiqi, Irwin, and Hertzman (2007), homeless families have less optimal learning environments in the sense that they have poor access to books when compared to those families that are stable and have a higher earning. Also, the parents in homeless families do not have to talk to their children about the essence of learning, thus posing to a poor child-parent interaction (Frank, 2016). In such an instance, one will find out that most homeless children have a problem with oral language abilities.

Health and Well- Being: Siddiqi, Irwin, and Hertzman (2007) asserts that the health and well- being of the homeless children is always at stake, especially when the migration patterns are considered. The author also explains that the children under any vulnerability, such as homelessness, are usually cut off from accessing perfect well- being and health scale, thus messing with their social competencies, which also hinders physical development.

Intervention and Prevention Measures in project 1 and 2

Project 1 involves a case study on ‘Access to Early Childhood Services for Young Children Experiencing Homelessness’ by Perlman et al., (2017) and the interview project.  In both projects, ECD programs and Outreach activities have been the core intervention and prevention measures.

ECD Programs: Siddiqi, Irwin, and Hertzman (2007) assert that ECD programs help in fostering and promoting individual’s skills and competencies that can enhance their participation in the workforce and society. The essentiality that comes along with the programs involves the social, cognitive, emotional, and physical gains that mainly determine health more than the life-course. For instance, in the case of an interview, the interviewee informed us that they included translation strategies that would help the communities and families that had not adequately adapted to the English language. In that effect, parents would help the children in understanding the information better. The preventive measure in that strategy was to ensure that the children do not get discouraged if they did not understand the readings at first.

Outreach activities: The activity is both an intervention and preventive measure in ensuring that the homeless children do not miss out on any activity, especially in learning, well-being, and health and child development essentials (Siddiqi, Irwin and Hertzman, 2007). For instance, in our recording, the interviewee explained that, the refugees could not get access to books due to the issue of the COVID-19 pandemic. In return, they have organized various mechanisms such as the use of technology such as Facebook to ensure that the children are not missing out on learning despite the social distance effects that have to keep them away from school. Therefore, through such acts, the interviewee and her colleagues will ensure that even if learning has stopped in some instances, the children will still be productive, where the parents will act as intermediaries.

Projects Evaluation and Analysis

The academic project and the interview projects pose a grand revelation on how the ECD programs can be essential in homeless children in all angles of life. The plans show that when the children are nurtured at a younger age, their behaviors gradually develop within a certain sphere of influence. In as much universal education projects have not been effected, the category that faces a lot of struggles are the youngsters, especially those that hail from homeless families. The academic project states that most young children who do not have chances to join public schools have no option apart from staying at home. That means that, whenever they see their fellow children getting to school, there is a probability of them having emotional problems though they do not have anyone to rescue them.

On the other hand, the interview project, the interviewee assured us that their organization ensured that the homeless, especially the refugees, usually had a chance to early childhood education even amid calamities. From the two explanations, one can assert that the community in which the homeless exist matters a lot. Hence, if the country values its citizens regardless of their social status, they will make efforts to ensure that the children, especially those that within the birth and eight years old, will have access to proper basic needs. Siddiqi, Irwin, and Hertzman (2007) supports that notion by indicating that the ECD services and programs are essential to both the individuals and the country as a whole. Since, when children are nurtured under the programs, as they grow, the rate of poverty in such a country will reduce, thus reducing also crime rates resulting in a peaceful societal environment. The author also emphasizes the need of the governments regardless of whether they exist in poor or rich countries to enhance child development at a younger age by ensuring that the ECD programs are effectively implemented. By doing that, the governments will be securing social policies that will be more beneficial in the future.

The interviewee and her colleagues seem to be more oriented in their activities in ensuring that the parents are involved in ensuring that the children have access to their educational needs. Through such activities, the group aims at ensuring that they enhance the child-parent relationship. For instance, the group knows that most parents have access to smartphones due to overgrowing technology worldwide. Hence, they have initiated Facebook to be the essential platform where they can share materials with the parents and, after that, provide them to their children. Perlman et al. (2017) and his team seems to focus more on ECD programs where the children have to study in school but did not explore adequately on the matter concerning how parents can be involved in a perfect relationship with their children. Siddiqi, Irwin, and Hertzman (2007) explores the case where he asserts that through parent-child facilitation and interaction, learning experiences are improved though in most cases, such situation has its roots from the rich families. As well, the rich children have access to libraries, and they share frequently reading due to their eloquence in oral language compared to the homeless children who have grown under the poverty adversaries. When the two projects are compared, the interview project seems to be much oriented with equalizing all children in all ways possible. Amid pandemic such as COVID-19, the organization is still ensuring that the homeless children are getting the privilege of the ECD program using parents and social media mediums.

Comparison and Evaluation of the influence of the project 

From my perspective, both projects had a critical review of the effects that homelessness vulnerability brings along to young children from birth to eight years. That is evidenced through the researcher’s efforts trying to dig dip on the effects that the vulnerability exposes to them and some critical interventions and preventions towards the children. The interview project poses a very good idea of using Facebook and parents as the major intermediaries during the COVID-19 calamity, the only limitation that the ideas have, is that it might not be very effective since not all parents might be acquiring smartphones. Due to poverty, they might also not have enough money to buy internet bundles that will enable them to access Facebook cites. Another problem might be a network-related issue since telecommunication companies might not have enabled strong tariffs in the areas, thus making it difficult to load information. The academic project to projects the need for a concrete solution by highlighting the major effect that the homeless children face, where even getting to a public school is a problem, thus calling for quick action to save the future of the children.

For the academic project, the main focus is on families that have exited their homes, therefore, reflecting the distress that both parents and children have due to such a situation. When comparing both projects under that aspect, one will find that in the academic research, they are trying to prove that it might be impossible for parents to take part in helping the children due to their immediate distress of being homeless. On the other hand, the interviewee and colleagues assume that parents can help their children in learning, thus going to an extent translating books that will help the parents explain English terms to their kids. Through such a notion, it becomes evident that in as many families and communities will have to be involved in ensuring that the children are supplied with better learning conditions, ECD programs are essential.

Both projects aim to have a special effect for the families where they intend to offer emotional support. If the researchers did not indulge in such research, most people and governments would not have recognized the plight of homeless children. For one, one has come to realize that homeless individuals suffer emotionally; therefore, through being respondents in academic research, they can talk out their grievances, which can make the world hear their cry. At a point, the respondents might offer false information since they are not getting help at any time since it is just an academic paper. The only limitation with the study is that it is just put under the paper, and it has not yet been implemented. On the other hand, the interviewee project is viable since the interviewee has already started to impact on the lives of the children, families, and the community at large. Therefore, when compared to the academic project, the interview project is much applicable, and all individuals can have certainty in its viability.

The two projects have explored the problems that majorly affect the homeless and especially children from birth towards, their families, and the community at large. The significant issues that the children suffer from, especially in their future, consist of cognitive, emotional, and social problems, which can make them aggressive, thus risking social security with its residents. As a way of avoiding such instances,  governments should ensure that they implement for the ECD programs to tame the children at a younger age. Also, the government can collaborate with other stakeholders such as Non-Governmental Organizations, which can help it stretch towards the rural areas and in the camps where the homeless live to offer their support. In that regard, the projects identified two interventions and preventive measures, which include ECD program and Outreach activities as one way of ensuring that the emotional, social, and cognitive behaviors of the children get nurtured early to avoid future complications.

References

Siddiqi, A.,  Irwin, L., and Hertzman, C. (2007). Total Environment Assessment Model for Early Child Development: Evidence Report.

Parsell, C. (2018). The homeless person in contemporary society. Routledge.

Perlman, S. M., Shaw, S. H., Kieffer, C. H., Whitney, G. A. C., & Bires, C. (2017). Access to early childhood services for young children experiencing homelessness. In Child and Family Well-Being and Homelessness (pp. 65-82). Springer, Cham.

Sandel, M., Sheward, R., de Cuba, S. E., Coleman, S., Heeren, T., Black, M. M., … & Rose-Jacobs, R. (2018). Timing and duration of pre-and postnatal homelessness and the health of young children. Pediatrics, 142(4), e20174254.