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The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a scoping review on the health challenges of families experiencing homelessness. There is a bi-directional relationship between health and homelessness in that poor health can increase the risk of housing loss, and experiencing homelessness is bad for one’s health. The experience of homelessness differs between populations and this review focuses on families as one of the fastest growing segments of the homeless population. While research has been integrated on the causes of homelessness for families, this same integration has not been conducted looking at health challenges of families experiencing homelessness.

A scoping review methodology is utilized in the paper. As the goal of this work is to ultimately develop interventions for a Canadian context, primacy is given to Canadian sources, but other relevant literature is also included.

A clear distinction is seen in the literature between health challenges of children of homeless families and health challenges of parents. These themes are explored separately, and preliminary recommendations are made for potential points of intervention as personal, program and policy levels.

This review of current evidence is an important first step in building a foundation for interventions to improve health outcomes for those experiencing housing loss.

Foreign-born families face challenges following migration to Canada that may impact their well-being and lead them to homelessness. Yet, there is limited research on the experience of homelessness in this population. The purpose of this paper is to examine the health of foreign-born families staying in the emergency shelter system in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and compare their experiences to Canadian-born homeless families who are also living in shelters.

Interviews were conducted with 75 adult heads of families who were residing in three family shelters. This study focused on mental and physical health functioning, chronic medical conditions, access to care and diagnoses of mental disorders.

Foreign-born heads of families reported better mental health than did Canadian-born heads of families with a significantly lower proportion of foreign-born participants reporting having been diagnosed with a mental disorder. Foreign-born heads of families also reported fewer chronic medical conditions than did Canadian-born heads of families.

This study relied on self-reported health and access to healthcare services. Data were drawn from a small, non-random sample.

This study is one of the first studies to examine the health and well-being of homeless foreign-born heads of families. Moreover, this paper also focuses on disparities in health, diagnoses of mental disorders, and access to healthcare services between foreign-born and Canadian-born families – a comparison that has not been captured in the existing literature.

This research documents the responsibilities and stresses of people with homeless relatives. Health and housing problems create a variety of challenges and sometimes burdens within families which are particularly stressful for family caregivers who are actively involved with helping homeless adults.

Our study and data examine stress proliferation and stress buffering among people with homeless relatives using quantitative data from 118 interviews, mostly with parents and siblings of homeless adults.

Quantitative data from 118 interviews, largely from parents and siblings of homeless adults, show that people who spend more time or money helping homeless relatives experience higher levels of stress. Stress levels are also higher among those who help a homeless relative with activities of daily living and those who work to prevent harm that involves a homeless relative. Stress derived from efforts to prevent harm is associated with stronger social support to people with homeless relatives.

Social and health service providers can provide helpful social support for both homeless people and for people with homeless relatives, particularly in circumstances where harm reduction is required.

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 11431 et seq.) establishes basic levels of service, support, and protection for homeless students and families in the United States and specifically prohibits discrimination while ensuring educational rights. According to the 2014 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, homelessness continues to be a pervasive concern, particularly for children under the age of 18 who account for nearly 25% (135,701) of homeless individuals, and youth between 18 and 24 who represent nearly 10% (58,601) of the homeless population. Despite the statutory protections afforded by McKinney-Vento, a number of barriers persist and prevent full enjoyment of the basic rights established by the Act. Overcoming these barriers in the courts has provided some relief, but is insufficient given the limits of McKinney-Vento. Thus, homeless students and families need school leaders who promote social justice and educational opportunities to prepare them for meaningful participation in democratic society. This chapter provides analysis regarding the legal rights of homeless youth, including an overview of significant cases and federal policy updates, and concludes with several recommendations for school leaders to establish clear guidelines and implement procedures to address the educational needs of homeless students.

The focus of the study was to explore the understanding of family among homeless adults in Southeast Texas. We incorporated both qualitative and quantitative methods by interviewing two key groups (short-term homeless, long-term homeless) over a 16-week period. Thirty homeless participants were interviewed using 18 questions designed to explore their understanding of family and the social supports that lead to resiliency. Participant ages ranged from 19 to 56 with an average of 44 years. Twenty-six participants were male and four were female. Half of all homeless participants claimed to lack familial support from either biological family or close friends. Among short-term homeless individuals, five of seventeen identified their biological family as fulfilling the role of a traditional family, while among long-term homeless adults, five of thirteen identified their friends as fulfilling the role of a familial unit. A recurring theme emerged in which participants defined family as those individuals who were consistently accessible for support, whether biological relations or non-related friends and companions. As we seek to improve our programs of assistance and advocacy, these findings become important as a step toward honoring our clients and recognizing the validity of their perceived realities as we reconstruct the models by which we facilitate interaction and intervention.

The purpose of this paper was to describe the research literature on the science of children's resilience and show its application to parenting interventions for high-risk families. Information about the design and conduct of pilot work to develop a parent program with homeless mothers was included to illustrated this application.

The design of this report was descriptive. The scientific rationale for promoting children's resilience. The scientific rationale for strengthening children's resilience by focusing on parent's promotion of attachment, executive function skills, and stress/reduction mindfulness was detailed, and the design and format of a pilot parent program was outlined.

Substantial research evidence affirmed the importance of strengthening children's resilience in high-risk families. Details from pilot work with homeless mothers illustrated the process by which activities were included in workshops to promote children's resilience. Future work will test the efficacy of this program in a controlled study with a range of pre- and post-assessments.

The current paper expanded the traditional focus of parent education to include strengthening children's resilience as a way to better address the myriad of critical needs faced by children and families experiencing homelessness.

The design and format of a community-based parenting program to strengthen children's resilience by focusing on attachment, executive function skills, and stress reduction/mindfulness were novel. Future research will test the efficacy of this new program with high-risk families.

This article is based on a contribution to a national conference held in April 2003 entitled ‘After Victoria: Learning from Experience and Research’. It aims to look beyond the focus of child protection in the Laming Report (2003), and suggests that the goal of inter‐professional care in ethnically diverse communities may encounter some particular barriers because of race. The article's purpose is to evaluate critically, against established research evidence, what impact ethnicity had on the way Victoria was perceived and assessed by the different professionals and organisations involved in her short life in England, before she died. The themes include the problems of working with individuals and families who are not habitually resident in the UK, the complexities of challenging people from minority ethnic backgrounds, the difficulties of using interpreters, the challenges in assessing minority ethnic families, and intra‐ and inter‐agency tensions in work with such families. All these themes are contextualised within the evidence available in the Laming Report. The article is intended to help organisations and staff understand some of the complexities concerning ethnicity and collaborative working, with the hope of an improvement in practice and policy.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it proposes a critical posthumanist orientation to social work as an approach to address the impediments to care experienced by interspecies families. Secondly, it challenges the anthropocentric assumptions that underpin this exclusion of nonhuman family members in human services disciplines such as social work.

This article presents primary data from a qualitative study into social work and other human services practice in the family violence and homelessness sectors in the state of Victoria, Australia.

Social workers undertook companion animal-inclusive practice to counter vulnerability to interspecies families caused by gender- and species-based violence, and by homelessness. Gender- and species-based violence was exacerbated by a lack of refuge options, and contributed to women considering their companion animals to be their children. The vulnerability that homelessness brought upon interspecies families was amplified by stigma within and external to social work and related professions, and the impediment that experiences of homelessness had on being able to provide care for their nonhuman family members. These factors shaped practice with interspecies families. Scope for future practice was also identified.

The research findings can be used to inform policy change that includes consideration of nonhuman family members, as well as critical posthuman program design in social work education.

Companion animal-inclusive practice with interspecies families in social work is an under researched area, and there is little empirical data available on the nature of this work in Australia. This paper addresses this gap by centring social workers' own accounts of practice. This paper has scope to contribute to education in social work and other welfare fields, with the potential to empower students to challenge assumptions about social work being solely focused on human-centred concerns.

The purpose of this study was to explore children’s pathways through homelessness within the South African context, with particular attention paid to pathways out of homelessness. This study focusses on factors influencing children’s successful transitions out of homelessness.

A qualitative exploratory design was used, using interviews with nine children who had exited or were in the process of exiting homelessness. Interviews were conducted at a children’s shelter in Pietermaritzburg or in the children’s home environments. Interviews were analysed thematically.

An ecological framework was used to frame the factors influencing children’s pathways in, through and out of homelessness in the children’s narratives. These included institutions, relationships and intrapersonal strengths and resources. The study suggested that constructive relationships with shelter staff and parental figures, as well as intrapersonal strengths, were the most prominent factors in children successfully negotiating their way through their homelessness. The importance of a relationship with the paternal family within some African cultures was also a point of leverage.

Implications for policy and practise include the need for systemic change, as well as greater support for shelters and shelter staff. The issue of rivalry in the shelter context and the role of the paternal family in the reintegration process require more research attention. The research is limited to homeless children in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

This study provided feedback to the shelter regarding their strategies for assisting homeless children off the streets. It further provided evidence for the importance of the work of the shelter, to strengthen advocacy efforts. This may be useful to others in similar circumstances.

This study highlights the importance of macrosystemic interventions in the efforts to assist homeless children, while at the same time not ignoring the inter and intra, personal elements to enhancing their well-being.

This paper is singular in its exploration of factors influencing children’s successful transitions out of homelessness within the South African context.

The purpose of this paper is to extend and apply the systems model of the household proposed by Dixon, his colleagues, and his students to situations in which vulnerable consumers are not able to follow the purely rational models of economics. The case of homeless families is examined.

The paper presents a literature review, an introduction of Baker et al.'s concepts of consumer normalcy and consumer vulnerability, and an application of expanded model to consumer studies of homeless persons published by Ronald Hill and his colleagues.

The same household systems models might be used to unfold the complex problems that can undermine the functioning in a household, causing it to be unproductive and potentially fail. Applications of the concepts of “consumer normalcy” and “consumer vulnerability” provide a useful platform to develop public policy recommendations, the example of homeless persons will be considered as an illustration.

The extension and application is limited in that it is applied to analyze data collected approximately 20 years ago. The research should be extended to actual homeless households in the present day, and to additional “types” of households who are likely to encounter vulnerabilities as consumers (e.g. persons with disabilities).

The four levels of household processes (employment, purchasing, home‐production, and consumption) provide a useful framework for examining households in which vulnerabilities occur. This approach is useful in identifying the gaps in the household processes that can slow down productivity and instead introduce confusion and demoralization, plus continue the spiral of economic deprivation.

For over 50 years, the work of Goffman has played an important role in identifying individuals and households that did not fit societal norms, resulting in their possibly experiencing conditions of stigmatization. Examining specific household types in terms of the functionality or dysfunctionality of their use of inputs may allow researchers to recommend various types of support, training, or assistance related to the household as a system, rather than focusing on the individual without considering the household dynamics.

This paper takes a general systems approach in applying the concepts of consumer normalcy and consumer vulnerability, both based in behavioral theories in the social sciences, to the economic approach to the household emphasizing rational decision making and orderly production functions.