Youth homelessness and its relationship with family conflict: Models for policy and practice

Abstract

Melbourne City Mission is one of Victoria's oldest and largest community service organisations. Working with people in the city and across the state to reduce risk, disrupt disadvantage and break down barriers, Melbourne City Mission does this across the full cycle of life, from early years to palliative care and through disability, homelessness, education and justice. Melbourne City Mission's vision is to create a fair and just community where people have equal access to resources and opportunities. Melbourne City Mission uses service expertise and knowledge, combined with specialist research, to better understand the root causes of disadvantage and exclusion. This informs innovative service responses and effective social policy advocacy that leads to sustainable solutions to disadvantage and exclusion.

Experiences of Family Conflict in Shelter-Residing Runaway Youth: A Phenomenological Study

“…Consistent with previous studies (Roche & Barker, 2017; Techakasem & Kolkijkovin, 2006), our study identified family poverty as a source of parent- youth conflict. Participants who experienced family poverty reported that they were envious of peers’ material possessions, compared their own status to peers, and felt inferior to their peers.…”

“…We found that participants’ parents often suffered from alcohol abuse and mental health problems, which increased family conflict(s). This was in line with studies asserting that parental alcohol misuse and mental health issues are associated with poor parent-child(ren) relationships and youth’s running away (McLaughlin et al, 2015; Roche & Barker, 2017). The present study also found that abusive and neglectful parenting deteriorated parent-youth relationships and influenced participants’ decisions to run away from home.…”

“…The main causes of adolescent runaways in Korean society are attributed to family conflict, the desire to live freely, and the burden of studying: these account for 70%, 7.1%, and 3.9% of cases, respectively (Kim et al, 2018). Across multiple cultures, family conflict is the most significant factor in adolescents’ decision to run away from home (Fernandes-Alcantara, 2019; Lee et al, 2011; Roche & Barker, 2017). Family conflict refers to an expressed struggle in which at least two interdependent family members perceive that their needs and expectations are in conflict with each other and with other family members’ needs and expectations (Galvin et al, 2019).…”

“…Korean adolescents’ perceptions of family conflicts mainly involve parental conflict and parent-adolescent conflict (Chung & Choi, 2004). Many adolescents run away to escape from family relationship conflicts, authoritarian parenting style, abusive and neglectful environments, and family poverty (Roche & Barker, 2017; Techakasem & Kolkijkovin, 2006). Most Korean runaway youth respond negatively to the prospect of returning home as they are concerned about encountering the family conflict(s) experienced previously (Jeon & Lee, 2012).…”

Affiliation With Delinquent Peers as a Mediator of the Relationships Between Family Conflict and School Bullying: A Short-Term Longitudinal Panel Study

“…Based on the following theories and research, we hypothesized that affiliation with delinquent peers at school is the potential psychosocial mediator of the association between family conflict and school bullying. For example, previous research has shown that adolescents who experience family conflict have more strained or alienated relationships with their parents (e.g., Fernandes-Alcantara, 2016;Noh & Kim, 2021;Roche & Barker, 2017), which increases their distrust in social relationships and decreases social skills and emotional functioning (Boutelle et al, 2009;Heinze et al, 2020;Van Rosmalen-Nooijens et al, 2017). Once they go to school to interact with their school peers, mainstream peers may dislike them or reject them because of their social deficits (Farmer et al, 2003;Gregson et al, 2017), increasing their chance to gravitate toward delinquent peers because they have few alternative peers to interact with (Lansford et al, 2014).…”