A Social Report for Ireland Volume II - the NESC Website

children 47Williams and Gorby (2002) highlight that homelessness has a tendency to beunderreported, so that youth homelessness could well be higher than these figuressuggest. For example, the most recent Counted In (2008) survey of homelessnessin the Dublin region found 576 child dependents living with their families withinhomeless services, suggesting at least 1,000 children in Ireland who are homeless,either in families or in HSE care (Homeless Agency, 2008). Furthermore, researchconducted by Focus Ireland on a sample of 44 young people leaving state carefound that two thirds had experienced homelessness within two years of leavingHSE care (Kelleher et al., 2000).Community ParticipationThe second component of the community and environmental domain of children’swell-being is community participation. In this report community participationfor children is measured by the proportion of children and young people who aremembers of community and charity groups. Almost one-third of young people aged12-18 are members of one or more groups (NCO, 2005). The groups include youthclubs, choirs and charities or voluntary groups. Girls report greater participation ingroups than boys, as do rural dwellers over urban dwellers and younger adolescentsare more likely to participate in groups than older adolescents.EnvironmentThe third component of the community and environment domain of children’swell-being is their surrounding environment. This aspect of children’s well-beingis captured by three indicators: environmental awareness; deaths from accidentsand injuries; and the availability of good places to spend free time.Environmental AwarenessIn the 2006 PISA survey students were asked if they were ‘familiar with or knewsomething about’ five environmental issues. Overall, Ireland had one of the topawareness levels of environmental issues. The results, comparing Ireland withthe OECD average, are presented in Figure 6.20. More than 80 per cent of studentrespondents in Ireland were familiar with the consequences of forest clearance andacid rain on the environment. Three quarters knew something about the increaseof greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and nearly two thirds were aware of theimpact of nuclear waste. For all these environmental issues the level of awarenessin Ireland was higher than the average awareness across the OECD. Just a quarterof students in Ireland were aware of the use of genetically modified organisms,compared to a third of students across the OECD.