Unaccompanied homeless youths often face unique barriers in enrolling and succeeding in school. These barriers may include school attendance policies, credit accrual, and legal guardianship requirements. Without a parent or guardian to advocate for them and exercise parental rights, they may be denied enrollment and remain out of school for extended periods of time. Unaccompanied homeless youths also may not understand their educational rights or know how to acquire this information. Given their vulnerability to not graduating from high school on time or at all, special attention and support should be provided to this important subgroup of homeless youths.
Unaccompanied homeless youths often face unique barriers to enrolling and succeeding in school. They often lack consistent guidance and support from a caring adult, and many unaccompanied homeless youths confront the challenges and stressors of homelessness on their own. Schools are strategically positioned to support these vulnerable children and youths and may do so by, providing targeted supports to ensure regular school attendance.
Connecting youths with trained and committed mentors (including academic and peer mentors) to provide support, guidance, and a sense of connection to school. Such mentors can also help monitor youths’ progress and develop graduation plans and connecting unaccompanied homeless youths to mental health supports, as needed.
Many of the identification strategies used for other subgroups of homeless students are also effective for identifying unaccompanied homeless youths, but additional strategies should be employed that target the students based on their unique characteristics. For example, establishing trust with unaccompanied youths, who may constitute their own community and culture or smaller networks and subcultures, is vital to ensuring they stay connected to school and openly share information needed to help them succeed in school.
Under Part B of the IDEA, public agencies must determine whether an unaccompanied homeless youth need a surrogate parent and pending the appointment of a surrogate parent when necessary, appropriate staff of emergency shelters, transitional shelters, independent living programs, and street outreach programs may be appointed as temporary surrogate parents, until a surrogate parent can be appointed that meets all applicable IDEA requirements.
