Group items tagged

Residency requirements, guardianship requirements, delays in transfer of school records, lack of transportation, and lack of immunization records often prevent homeless children from enrolling in school

Homelessness has a devastating impact on children and youths’ educational opportunities.

while 87% of homeless youth are enrolled in school, only 77% attend school regularly.

2007-2008 school year 794,617 homeless children and youth were enrolled in public schools

Furthermore, the number does not include all preschool-age children, or any infants and toddlers.

22% lived in shelters, 65% lived with other family members or friends, 7% lived in motels, and 6% lived without shel

Homeless families move frequently due to limits to length of shelter stays, search for safe and affordable housing or employment, or to escape abusive family members. Too often, homeless children have to change schools because shelters or other temporary accommodations are not located within their school district. Homeless children and youth frequently transfer schools multiple times in a single year because of these conditions. 

According to the Institute for Children and Poverty, homeless children are nine times more likely to repeat a grade, four times more likely to drop out of school, and three times more likely to be placed in special education programs than their housed peers.

McKinney Act’s Education of Homeless Children and Youth (EHCY)

1987 in response to reports that only 57% of homeless children were enrolled in school. 

Enrollment of homeless students increased by 17% between the 2006-2007 and the 2007-2008 school years. Yet, while almost all states have revised laws and policies to improve access to education for homeless students, significant barriers to enrollment and attendence remain, including guardianship and immunization requirements, transportation problems and school fees. Barriers to success in school were found to include family mobility, poor health, and lack of food, clothing, and school supplies. [7] Many of these issues were addressed in the 2001 reauthor

Local educational agency (LEA) sub grants support a variety of activities, including identification and outreach; assistance with school enrollment and placement; transportation assistance; school supplies; coordination among local service providers; before and after school and summer educational programs; and referrals to support services.

State educational agency (SEA) funding helps support services such as toll-free hotlines; awareness raising activities for educators and service providers; preparation of educational materials for statewide distribution; technical assistance to schools, service providers, parents, and students; and enrollment assistance.

The EHCY Program provides formula grants to state educational agencies to ensure that all homeless children and youth have equal access to the same free and appropriate education, including preschool education, provided to other children and youth

ization of the McKinney-Vento Act, but due to a lack in funding, have not been fully addressed.

there was a 17% increase in homeless children and youth identified in public schools.

With numbers of homeless students nearing 800,000, states failed to provide subgrants to 41% of students identified as homeless

Yet, the EHCY program was funded at only $65 million in FY2009, less than one third of the $210 million minimum NAECHY estimates will be required to appropriately serve the rising number of homeless students in America.

43% percent of responding cities reported an increase in the overall number of homeless persons accessing emergency shelter and transitional housing programs during the last year

71% of responding cities reported increases in households with children accessing emergency shelter. 65% of these cities are predicting increases in overall requests for emergency shelter and 100% predict increases in requests for emergency shelter by households with children. Meanwhile, 52% of responding cities already report having to turn people away some or all of the time.

. The primary reason for family homelessness is the lack of affordable housing, though poverty, unemployment, low-paying jobs, family disputes, substance abuse, and other factors all play significant roles in family homelessness. Recent statistics indicate that 26% of those suffering from homelessness are considered “severely mentally ill;” 19% are employed; 15% are victims of domestic violence; 13% are physically disabled; 13 are veterans; and 2% are HIV positive.

Two subpopulations of children who face increased policy barriers to education are unaccompanied homeless youth and homeless preschoolers. Homeless youth are often prevented from enrolling in and attending school by curfew laws, liability concerns, and legal guardianship requirements. [12] Homeless preschoolers also face difficulty accessing public preschool education. Less than 16% of eligible preschool aged homeless children are enrolled in preschool programs. [13]

Congress reauthorized the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act in 2002.  It changed some of the responsibilities of school districts and states, including the requirement for each school district to have a designated homeless education liaison to build awareness in the school and community.  Despite some increase in funding to the initiative in the last few years, the program still lacks proper funding, and, therefore, cannot be adequately implemented on the state and local level.

While they are experiencing homelessness, however, it is essential that children remain in school.  School is one of the few stable, secure places in the lives of homeless children and youth -- a place where they can acquire the skills needed to help them escape poverty.

We will make it happen, whether we use state funds, money from our private foundation or if we have to raise it through scholarships," he said.

To help with the process, the school will use a tuition management company to assess the needs of students,

The top priority is to make sure that low-income students from around the state can still attend the school,

The school currently boards 27 of its 44 students

hey plan to enroll about 75 students in the coming school year and board 37,

"It's still up in the air. The number depends on the need of all the students, and the money we have available from the state,"

It originally opened with just 19 students in 2011 on the Good Will-Hinckley campus,

The residential housing option is available through the school's parent organization, Good Will-Hinckley, which also oversees the L.C. Bates Museum and the Glenn Stratton Learning Center on the campus.

The District of Columbia saw a 22 percent increase from 2010-11 to 2011-12; Maryland a 7 percent increase; and Virginia a 15 percent increase.

Advocates for children and the homeless urged the federal government to take new steps to better protect homeless children and families.  Darla Bardine, policy director of the National Network for Youth, said in a statement:

Focusing on the here and now helps individuals become aware of their negative thoughts, acknowledge them without judgment and realize they’re not accurate reflections of reality, writes author William Marchand, M.D.

Depression and Bipolar Disorder: Your Guide to Recovery

psychotherapeutic and pharmacological treatments.

individuals start to see their thoughts as less powerfu

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)

It’s based on mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)

MBCT teaches individuals to detach from distorted and negative thinking patterns, which can trigger the return of depression.

a program developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. MBSR includes mindfulness tools, such as meditation, a body scan and hatha yoga, along with education about stress and assertiveness, according to Marchand.

Getting professional treatment for depression is vital. But there are complementary mindfulness practices readers can try on their own

is essentially training one’s attention to maintain focus and avoid mind wandering

10 to 15 minutes to meditate on most days.

Whether you’re eating, showering or getting dressed, you can practice mindfulness while doing any activity, according to Marchand, also a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Utah School of Medicine

Another option is to take a mindful walk, which also is helpful because it includes exercise, “an important component of healing.”

Mindfulness is a valuable practice for improving the cognitive symptoms of depression, such as distorted thinking and distractibility

realize that thoughts are not facts and refocus their attention to the present.

Among other things, the Peacemaker instructed them to approach every decision with concern for the seventh generation to follow.

their reality is Wall Street

strong leaders must change the way business is done. They must find a way to put the common good above profits.

"Business as usual is over," he said

Haudenosaunee, or the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy

Well, they have to. Otherwise they're going to get hammered. They're going to get hammered anyway.

- if you're going to take those steel mills and put them some other place, they're going to be belching a lot of environmental damage ...

it's because of outsourcing

. I don't see it changing, because I don't see any relaxation from the executive side -- from the leadership side -- because they're making money

Where is the moral side to the shareholders on this thing?

They're not in the reality business; they're in business. I said, if you put them up there and just let them freeze for 24 hours, they would get an inkling of another power, of another authority.

If you have grandchildren and great-grandchildren, you're involved

Everything in this room came from the earth

I don't think they deal with it. I mean, their realit

This round world is finite.

of oil right now.

and what was that line?

Growth. You have one finite earth. That's the problem here

But I do think human beings -- I have always been amazed by human beings.

People have to make less money -- way, way, way less money. People have to share more of what they have.

Thanksgiving for the winds that bring the seasons and does the planting, all of that. Then we have thanksgiving for the grandfathers, the thunder and the lightning, that bring the rain --

so it's the stockholder.

respect and thanksgiving for nature.

They're not in the reality business; they're in business.

outsourced your pollution

influence their thinking

you not only outsourced your work and your company,

their reality is Wall Street. That's their reality. It is real, but it doesn't deal with the forces of nature.

extracting it at tremendous rates with no perception of consequences.

stockholder.

the ones that really determine what the direction of the corporation is going to go.

idea of private property.

hat's was people power did that. Germany didn't want it, East Germany didn't want it, nobody wanted it. People wanted it, and nothing could stop them. Once they get in a move in that direction they become a force. It's very difficult -- it's not a manageable force -- and that's why leadership is so vital and important.

eadership and the control factor for human beings, in particular, is moral. If you don't have moral law you don't have any law. If there's no moral law, you don't have any.

you have to understand about nature and natural law is

no mercy to this law.

you don't understand that law and you don't abide by that law, you will suffer the consequence.

You lead by action.

we personify these elements to bring our people closer to them so they have more respect.