Youth Who Run Away From Out-of-Home Care: Issue Brief

Chapin Hall has conducted the largest study to date of this population, including analysis of government administrative data on more than 14,000 youths who ran away from out-of-home care in a 10 year period between 1993 and 2003. The report shows the likelihood that an individual youth would run away increased significantly starting in the late 1990s, and doubling by 2003, largely as a result of an increase in chronic runaway behavior. The report identifies a number of reasons why this group of kids runs. 6 page pdf file.

Tucson City Buses Help Kids Find Help

The city bus authority in Tucson, Ariz., has partnered with Project safe Place’s Open Inn initiative, which helps young people in an effort to prevent homelessness, drug abuse, and other programs. Drivers of the city’s 189 buses will provide young people in distress with a free ride while they radio their dispatcher to contact Open Inn, which provides social services to youths and families in crisis. Once contacted, an Open Inn outreach worker will meet the youth at a bus stop along the driver’s route.

A New York State program for status offenders, now in place for three years, is helping get disobedient, but not delinquent, children back on track while yielding significant cost savings. The program, a joint venture between child welfare and probation, relies on a variety of models to divert children and their families back to the community and away from courts and law enforcement. 8 page pdf file.

Education for Homeless Youth: The McKinney-Vento Homelessness Assistance Act

The act ensures that children are entitled to continued enrollment in their home school or immediate enrollment in a new school. It also provides a stream of federal funding for an array of supports including, but not limited to tutoring, transportation, and cash assistance. Communities nationwide have applied McKinney-Vento eligibility to young people who have runaway from a foster home, group home, or other placement, and children in a number of temporary living arrangements including shelter, foster homes, group homes and evaluation centers. Useful links: 

• U.S. Department of Education Draft Guidance to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, Amended July 2004
• CWLA Tips for Accessing Educational Supports for Youth in Out-of-Home Care
• National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
  • Back To School Self-Advocacy Kit – to be used to enroll homeless children this fall.
  • List of State Coordinators for the Education of Homeless Children
• National Center for Homeless Education  - Another resource on meeting the educational needs of children and youth experiencing homelessness

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On the Run in Las Vegas

A feature article in Las Vegas CityLife looks at teens that run away in Las Vegas. Kids run from family conflicts. Some are kicked out by parents when they become pregnant or disclose their sexual orientation. Some want to get out of abusive situations. A local runaway can spend months living with friends, floating from one home to the next – an activity called couch-surfing. Last year 150 women under the age of 18 were arrested in Clark County on prostitution charges.

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This recently published book from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty analyzes legal trends, identifies noteworthy state and territorial statutes and makes policy recommendations on:

• Definitions of child, youth and runaway
• Youth in need of services

   

• Status offenses, including running away, truancy and curfews
• Emancipation

   

• Rights of youth to enter into contracts
• Definitions and consequences of harboring runaway youth, and
• Services and shelters for unaccompanied youth.

   

The book may be purchased for $25 per hard copy plus $4 shipping from the NLCHP. A downloadable version is available at no charge for members only.

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• Resources for the Street Outreach Program Grantees 1997- 32 page document. Includes publications related to preventing sexual abuse or exploitation of street youth, clearinghouse and resource center information, national resource organizations.

   

• Runaway and Homeless Youth – Policy Statement from the National Collaboration for Youth.

   

• Homeless Youth Who are They and How Do We Successfully Intervene – From the Co-Occurring Collaborative of Southern Maine, types of runaways, descriptions, services in Maine, recommendations.

   

• Drug Abuse Among Runaway and Homeless Youths Calls for Focused Outreach Solutions - Summary of results from three NIDA-funded studies.

   

• National Runaway Switchboard – Help for runaways and their families. Information for teens, parents, teachers, concerned adults.

   

• Reductions in HIV Risk Among Runway Youths – Description of StreetSmart, a small group intervention to reduce HIV-related sexual and drug-related risk behaviors in a shelter for runaways. From CDC’s National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention.

   

• Runaway Lives: Personal Stories and Reflections by Runaways and Their Families – An Internet project of the Penn State Lehigh Valley Library. Runaways, family and friends post their stories on this Internet site.

   

• Children of the Night - Web site about Dr. Lois Lee’s program for children engaged in street prostitution. The FAQ Page is particularly interesting.

   

• Covenant House – Services and shelter for homeless and runaway youth with centers throughout the country and abroad. Privately funded.

   

The article examines the effects of deinstitutionalization of status offenders, a national movement from the 1970’s, that made running away no longer a crime for juveniles. Kids cannot be locked up or detained for running away. Juvenile Court Judge Cheryl Allen, another NCJFCJ member, discusses the frustration she experiences in attempting to assist girls who run away. 

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New OJJDP Bulletin, part of the NISMART Study, provides information on the number and characteristics of children who are gone from their homes either because they have run away or because they have been thrown out by their caretakers. 

A statewide newspaper published by and for the State of Washington ’s homeless and foster-care youth. It is free and is published monthly by the Mockingbird Society. The paper is written and edited by teens who are paid $7 per hour up to 15 hours a week. It focuses on issues of special interest to homeless and foster care youth.

The purpose of the paper is to give a voice to and to engage homeless and foster care youth. More than 3,000 copies of the newspaper are circulated monthly in Washington’s social service agencies, homeless shelters and alternative schools.

Learn more about the Mockingbird Society.

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The Washington State Institute on Public Policy (WSIPP) has just released a report on the outcomes for youth admitted to that state’s secure crisis residential centers. Some background on the report:

"In 1995 Washington State implemented policies for at-risk youth intended to protect children and help families reconcile. Known as the ‘Becca Bill,’ the policies include court intervention for at-risk youth and provisions for mandatory treatment of youth with chemical dependency problems. The bill established secure crisis residential centers (CRCs) which prevent youth from leaving CRCs without parental or staff permission. During their stays in secure CRCs, youth and their families are referred to counseling and treatment services."

The new report is titled At-Risk and Runaway Youth in Washington State: Outcomes for Youth Admitted to Secure Crisis Residential Centers and Mandatory Chemical Dependency Treatment. Information from the Executive Summary:

• The average age of a youth entering secure CRC during the study time frame was 15.
• Females constituted two-thirds of secure CRC youth.
• One-third of the youth in the study received drug and alcohol assessments following a Becca admission. Of those assessed, 83% were diagnosed as chemically dependent or substance abusers.
• Mental health services were provided for 17% of youth following a Becca Admission.
• Prior to a Becca admission, 35 parents had filed ARY (At-risk youth petitions) and 13 had filed CHINS (Children in need of services) petitions. During the period after a Becca admission, 68 ARY and 33 CHINS petitions were filed.
• Of the 567 youth who should have been in high school, 38% were enrolled in public school during the year following a Becca admission.
• During the 18 months following a Becca admission, 25 percent of youth had at least one criminal conviction. Thirty-nine percent of the crimes were felonies.

After their release from secure CRCs, 72 percent of Becca youth lived with their parents. Forty-seven percent of parents surveyed thought their children’s relationship with the family improved "a little" or "a lot."

There are three reports to look at, read, and/or download on this page on the WSIPP site. The latest is the report above. The others are Who Uses Crisis Residential Centers in Washington State? And Evaluation of the HOPE Act: New State Services for Street Youth. (At the time this is being sent the WSIPP site is not available. Apparently they're down for some reason. Look again in a couple of days.)

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Take a minute and visit CWLA’s website. You can click on, read and download from the main page, Life on the Run, Life on the Streets, an article on runaways from the July issue of Children’s Voice. All too rarely is anything published about runaways. Since this is a subject I know fairly well, I’ll say that this article is a thorough, knowledgeable treatment of the subject. List of runaway resources with physical addresses/email at the back. 

Teens in Trouble: A Survival Page for Parents - "Maintained for parents by a parent." The issues covered here include Runaways. A very good source for further links and special programs. Will tell you, for instance, about the Greyhound Bus program. Other issues: substance abuse, learning disorders, other mental disorders, teen culture, suicide, eating disorders, criminal behavior. [For some bizarre reason I cannot get this link to work. Here's the address if you want to try it yourself: http://www.lv.psu.edu/jkll/teens/runaways.html]