This brief highlights several of the most pressing challenges in addressing the needs of families who are experiencing homelessness and presents a set of strong policy recommendations for assessment, intervention, research, and service delivery related to homeless children and their parents. Chapters increase awareness of the mental health, educational, and developmental challenges faced by these children and their parents. In addition, chapters provide practice implications of current research with a focus on the importance of careful assessment of service and housing needs; individual differences in strengths and adjustment of parents and children experiencing homelessness; and innovative treatment and service delivery approaches to address the unique needs of this population. Featured topics include: Promoting positive parenting among homeless families. Innovative intervention, assessment, and service delivery models. Homeless children and early childhood care and education systems. Early Risers intervention & Community Action Targeting Children who are Homeless Project (Project CATCH). Child and Family Well-Being and Homelessness is an essential resource for policy makers and related professionals and for graduate students and researchers in developmental, clinical, and school psychology; child, youth and family policy; public health; and social work.

Sharing the daily struggles of children and families residing in transitional situations (homelessness or because of risk of homelessness, being connected with the child welfare system, or being new immigrants in temporary housing), this text recommends strategies for delivering mental health and intensive case-management services that maintain family integrity and stability. Based on work undertaken at the Center for the Vulnerable Child in Oakland, California, which has provided mental health and intensive case management to children and families living in transition for more than two decades, this volume outlines culturally sensitive practices to engage families that feel disrespected by the assistance of helping professionals or betrayed by their forgotten promises. Chapters discuss the Center's staffers' attempt to trace the influence of power, privilege, and beliefs on their education and their approach to treatment. Many U.S. children living in impoverished transitional situations are of color and come from generations of poverty, and the professionals they encounter are white, middle-class, and college-educated. The Center's work to identify the influences or obstacles interfering with services for this target population is therefore critical to formulating more effective treatment, interaction, and care.

There have always been homeless people in the United States, but their plight has only recently stirred widespread public reaction and concern. Part of this new recognition stems from the problem's prevalence: the number of homeless individuals, while hard to pin down exactly, is rising. In light of this, Congress asked the Institute of Medicine to find out whether existing health care programs were ignoring the homeless or delivering care to them inefficiently. This book is the report prepared by a committee of experts who examined these problems through visits to city slums and impoverished rural areas, and through an analysis of papers written by leading scholars in the field.

First Published in 2002.

While family life has conspicuously changed in the past fifty years, it would be a mistake to conclude that family routines and rituals have lost their meaning. In this book Barbara H. Fiese, a clinical and developmental psychologist, examines how the practices of diverse family routines and the meanings created through rituals have evolved to meet the demands of today’s busy families. She discusses and integrates various research literatures and draws on her own studies to show how family routines and rituals influence physical and mental health, translate cultural values, and may even be used therapeutically. Looking at a range of family activities from bedtime stories to special holiday meals, Fiese relates such occasions to significant issues including parenting competence, child adjustment, and relational well-being. She concludes by underscoring the importance of flexible approaches to family time to promote healthier families and communities.

​​​​​​Homelessness among families with children in the U.S. is rising rapidly due to the economic downturn. Supporting Homeless Families: Current Practices and Future Directions aims to raise the standard of services provided to families without homes through practices that are strengths-based and culturally competent. This book provides a contextual overview of family homelessness. An ecological and developmental framework for understanding the implications of homelessness from infancy through adulthood are presented with reference to existing research. The book also addresses innovative designs for providing collaboration between and among diverse services that interface with families experiencing homelessness. In doing so, the importance of providing families with culturally competent services that support them during episodes of homelessness as well as the period of re-housing are addressed. Examples of empirically proven interventions and best practices are showcased, and roadblocks to success and sustainability are discussed.

Who are the homeless children in America and what do we know about them? How does their being homeless affect them and society in general? What′s being done to help them? What About America′s Homeless Children? takes a multifaceted look at the growing, disturbing problem of children (including infants) in homeless families and abandoned and runaway children in America. The author examines the social factors that create homeless situations of children and personal and educational problems that can result from it. The health risks to this population, including unsanitary living conditions, poor nutrition, physical assault, and lack of access to health care are also explored. Author Paul G. Shane brings the problems and effects of homelessness to a personal level by presenting ethnographic case studies of individual children in urban shelters, families in a shelter program, and people who "survived" a homeless youth experience. The history of programs, both governmental and nongovernmental, and government policies for homeless youth are also examined. The book concludes with recommendations for policies and programs that can prevent homelessness for children. Human service professionals and policymakers who deal with children and families as well as those in the fields of public health, policy studies, and clinical and counseling psychology will find this book a stimulating summary of research findings and implications about this vulnerable population.