Advocating for Change to Meet the Developmental Needs of Young Children Experiencing Homelessness

Abstract

Young children experiencing homelessness are at considerable risk for developing physical and cognitive impairments, yet federal and state programs often overlook their needs. Although early intervention programs should serve as family-centered, health-promoting resources for families experiencing homelessness, many do not locate and comprehensively screen eligible children ages ≤3 yr in their communities. Occupational therapy practitioners have a role in advocating for improved access to high-quality, federally mandated programming for this population. They should be aware of the barriers faced by homeless families in accessing equitable early developmental services and of strategies to support individual families and communities experiencing homelessness.

A multisource analysis of child streetism in Nigerian urban centres

“…The outreach approach has also been adopted as an intervention strategy in Nigeria. Its underlying principle is to offer advocacy, counselling, and educational services to children in a street context (O'Donnell & McKinnon, 2022; Urgessa Gita & Abeshu Dissasa, 2023). Although the tendency of this approach to make children resist leaving the streets should be discouraged, it should be used to build relationships with the children to ease their entry into a suitable institution.…”