The McKinney-Vento Act and Children and Youth ... - State of Michigan

Some common living
situations for children
and youth experiencing
homelessness include:
• Cars and campgrounds
• Parks, abandoned
buildings, train or bus
stations, under bridges,
and other public places
• Emergency shelters,
domestic violence
shelters, or transitional
living programs
• Temporarily sharing the
housing of friends or
relatives, often sleeping in
a garage or common area
• Low-income motel rooms
Children and youth experiencing homelessness face many barriers to
educational success, including a lack of many of the most basic survival
needs, such as shelter, food, health care, physical safety, healthy surroundings,
clothing, and transportation. They are under constant and severe emotional
stress as they try to meet those needs.
A further barrier to educational success is the lack of school stability caused
by the volatility of homelessness. Due to their mobility, 28% of homeless
children go to three or more schools in a single year. 12 Shelters often limit
lengths of stay, forcing families and youth to move. Furthermore, shelters
may be full, non-existent, or located at a distance from previous residences,
causing youth to move frequently among unstable living arrangements.
Children in out-of-home care are children who have been placed in the
custody of a child welfare agency and have been removed from the physical
custody of their birth or adoptive parents due to abuse or neglect. The term
“out-of-home care” includes children and youth in the custody of the child
welfare system living in foster family homes, kinship care arrangements, and
child care institutions.
Children in out-of-home care, similar to children experiencing homelessness,
also confront mobility and other challenges to educational success. The
maltreatment they have experienced and the subsequent separation from
their families traumatizes them physically and emotionally. Their experiences
in the child welfare system are often unstable, as youth may be moved
frequently among foster homes and other placements.
In addition to their initial move upon entering foster care, youth face
an average of one to two placement changes per year while in out-ofhome
care. 13 This mobility may be due to a lack of available, appropriate
placements; changes in the ultimate permanency plan for the youth; poor
selection or supervision of placements; failed reunification efforts; or crises
in placements, among many other possible factors that require an immediate
change in placement.
“ I went to four different schools for 8th grade, because I had about 15 foster placements
that first year. I failed 8th grade, so I had to go to summer school, at a fifth school. I had
been in advanced classes, but I didn’t get good enough grades in 8th grade to get credit
for them.”
—Rebecca Shier 14
8 The McKinney-Vento Act and Children and Youth Awaiting Foster Care Placement