Homelessness in Adolescence: Agency Services, Theories, and Solutions

This report delves into the critical issue of adolescent homelessness, focusing on the services provided by the "Youth off the Street" agency. It begins with an introduction defining adolescence and highlighting the prevalence of homelessness among young people in Australia. The report then provides an overview of the agency, detailing the services offered to support homeless youth, including shelter, education, counseling, and employment opportunities. Interview questions used to gather information are presented, followed by a secondary source analysis that explores the causes and consequences of adolescent homelessness, such as poverty, family conflict, and lack of access to education. The analysis incorporates lifespan development theories, specifically Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development and Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, to illustrate how homelessness affects the psychological and social development of adolescents. Findings from an interview with the agency are analyzed to identify the challenges faced by the organization and the needs of the youth. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of community support and the need for increased awareness to address and eliminate adolescent homelessness, advocating for suitable care and safe accommodation services for this vulnerable population.

Homelessness in Adolescence

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
PART 1............................................................................................................................................1
Overview of human service agency ............................................................................................1
Interview questions......................................................................................................................1
Secondary source analysis ..........................................................................................................1
Lifespan development theory ......................................................................................................2
Analysis from interview ..............................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Adolescence is defined as the transitional phase of psychological and physical
development during which an individual develops into an adult. It is considered as the onset of
puberty phase and refers to age group of 10-12. According to Molloy, (2017) in Australia around
50% of homeless people are below the age of 25. The report will analyse the services provided
by “Youth off the street” to the young homeless people so that they quality of life can be
improved. It will evaluate the association of adolescence homelessness with various development
theory.
PART 1
Overview of human service agency
“Youth off the street” (YOTS) is well known community organisation which works for
the young people. The service agency provides support and care services for the young people
who need support from abuse, drug addictions and the issue of homelessness. Due to family
conflicts, violence, poverty and unemployment many people in adolescence group are forced to
live on roads and does not have access to safe accommodation services (Youth off the street,
2019). Such people have higher vulnerability of sexual and physical abuse, drug dependencies
and other critical health issues. YOTS identifies such homeless people and provide them
education, shelter services, psychological and health counsellings and employment opportunities
so that their health and quality of living standard can be improved.
Interview questions
 What services are provided by YOTS and why it is necessary to emphasis on them ?
 What difficulties are faced by the organisation in providing services ?
 How management, funds and other operational issues are resolved to enhance the scope
of services provided to youth welfare?
Secondary source analysis
Teenagers are forced to live the life of homelessness due to economic crisis or when they
are forced to leave from their family. Apart from these teenagers who are victim of health issues,
violence and the individuals escaped from juvenile detention centres are also the major causes
for homelessness issues (Hoffnung and et.al., 2013). The homelessness teenagers not only suffer
from issues of poverty, emotional abuse, social isolation and violence events but they are also
deprived of education and overall development opportunities (Hutchison, 2016). The
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adolescence homelessness can also turn into long term or life long homelessness situation if
suitable interventions are not taken for such people. Thus, there is high need that teenagers who
experience violence or who have risk of homelessness can be provided quick assistance
(Shaffer & Kipp, 2007). The service agencies such as YOTS create awareness programs so that
optimum number of teenagers can access the support services for homeless people. It is also
required that service providers must also assess the emotional needs of teenagers so that their
homeless experience does not have critical impact on the development phase of the individual.
Lifespan development theory
The adolescence homelessness issue also influences the development process of
individuals. This can be supported by following development theories:
Jean Piaget theory:
This theory states that the psychological development and cognitive efficiencies of child
is accomplished in several stages. As per this theory, the adolescence age development is
described by formal operational stage. In adolescence teens develop ethical, moral and social
issues (Smetana, Campione-Barr & Metzger, 2006). They also become capable to use reasoning
and deductive logics. Thus, when homeless teenagers witness social discrimination, lack of basic
amenities it affects their perspective as well as ethical and moral thinking. As per the view of
Piaget the living conditions or the other schema affects the learning and experience of the child
(Soto & Tackett, 2015). When teenagers observe that other people are having all comforts and
they are suffering with so many hardships then it creates a negative impact on them. It not only
influences their learning abilities and social perspective but also makes them more vulnerable to
adopt the unsocial or unethical habits. The homelessness life affect the intellectual growth of the
child which has significant impact on later life of the individual.
Bronfenbrenner's theory of development:
According to this theory the development of a child is influenced by social relations as
well as every phenomenon and object in their surrounding environment. The homeless people
lives on roadside and thus the discriminatory behaviour of people towards themselves and the
interaction of them with other kind of people affects their learning and behaviour pattern (Hankin
& et.al., 2015). The mesosystem which consist of the interaction with teachers, group members
of service agency and rehab centre can help homeless teenagers to recover from the emotional
trauma and to lead an improved life style. According to this development model the there are
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some elements which does not affect individuals directly but can have impact on overall
development of the child (Pugliese & et.al., 2015). For instance the government support and
regulations related to drug or alcohol and shelter services to homeless teenagers can affect the
child development phases. As per this model the macro system elements such as cultural and
social beliefs and religious elements also affect the situation and growth patterns of homeless
teenagers. For instance as compare to boys, homeless girls are more prone to the harassment
events which makes them more traumatic. Thus, such types of harassment in the early years of
age. From Bronfenbrenner's theory it can be concluded that different environmental factors such
as living conditions, interaction with different people and social factors must be regulated and
analysed so that homeless teenagers can also live a healthy and safe life (Murillo & et.al., 2016).
Analysis from interview
From the interview it has been analysed that YOTS identifies various physical, emotional
and social needs of teenagers. In the adolescence age various emotional and physical changes
makes people highly sensitive and emotional (Gielen & Roopnarine, 2016). Thus, it is very easy
for the homelessness people to get manipulate by others. This is one of the reason that in order to
fulfil the basic needs such teenagers engage in crimes, drug and alcohol addictions, emotional
trauma and other critical health complications. YOTS provides food services to such homeless
teenagers who does not have shelter or food. The organisation receives funds and support from
the government but that is very minimum and is insufficient to manage its increasing number of
volunteers, team members and service users.
To assist the homeless teenagers it is required that along with the safe and comfortable
living they are accompanied with proper care and growth opportunities (Piat & et.al., 2015). The
hardships faced by homeless teenagers not only affect their physical and mental development but
also influences and determine their future life style. YOTS provides educational support,
professional and health counselling, rehabilitation centres for teenagers involved in drug
addictions and refugee centres for the young people. It has been also observed that there is less
awareness and concern in the society towards such teenagers.
The service agency needs community support so that it can provide services to every
homelessness individual (Knoll & et.al., 2015). The lack of awareness among communities and
limited financial resources makes it hard for YOTS to sustain its continuity and operational
efficiency. Thus, there is need that adolescence homelessness must be analysed and awareness
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must be created among people (Rueger & et.al., 2016). It will help to understand seriousness of
the issue so that community and government support can be encouraged and homelessness can
be eliminated.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above discussion that individuals in adolescence group must
be provided with suitable care and safe accommodation services. The service agencies such as
YOTS must be encouraged with the community support so that responsive and respectful support
can be provided to young people and their specific development needs in the adolescence age
can be understood and fulfilled.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Gielen, U. P., & Roopnarine, J. L. (Eds.). (2016). Childhood and Adolescence: Cross-Cultural
Perspectives and Applications: Cross-Cultural Perspectives and Applications. ABC-
CLIO.
Hankin, B. L. & et.al., (2015). Depression from childhood into late adolescence: influence of
gender, development, genetic susceptibility, and peer stress. Journal of abnormal
psychology, 124(4), 803.
Hoffnung, M. and et.al., 2013. Lifespan development. A topical approach. Milton, QLD: John
Wiley & Sons Australia.
Hutchison, E. D. (2016). Essentials of human behavior: Integrating person, environment, and
the life course. Sage Publications.
Knoll, L. J., & et.al., (2015). Social influence on risk perception during
adolescence. Psychological science, 26(5), 583-592.
Murillo, L. G., & et.al., (2016). Childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and
homelessness: a 33-year follow-up study. Journal of the American Academy of Child &
Adolescent Psychiatry, 55(11), 931-936.
Piat, M., & et.al., (2015). Pathways into homelessness: Understanding how both individual and
structural factors contribute to and sustain homelessness in Canada. Urban
Studies, 52(13), 2366-2382.
Pugliese, C. E. & et.al., (2015). Increasing adaptive behavior skill deficits from childhood to
adolescence in autism spectrum disorder: Role of executive function. Journal of autism
and developmental disorders, 45(6), 1579-1587.
Rueger, S. Y., & et.al., (2016). A meta-analytic review of the association between perceived
social support and depression in childhood and adolescence. Psychological
Bulletin, 142(10), 1017.
Shaffer, D. R., & Kipp, K. (2007). Developmental psychology: Childhood and adolescence.
Australia: Wadsworth/Thomson.
Smetana, J. G., Campione-Barr, N., & Metzger, A. (2006). Adolescent development in
interpersonal and societal contexts. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 255-284.
Soto, C. J., & Tackett, J. L. (2015). Personality traits in childhood and adolescence: Structure,
development, and outcomes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(5), 358-
362.
Online
Molloy,.S., 2017. Youth homelessness is Australia’s national disgrace, with 44,000 kids sleeping
rough right now. [Online]. Accessed through <https://www.news.com.au/national/youth-
homelessness-is-australias-national-disgrace-with-44000-kids-sleeping-rough-right-
now/news-story/fe6bbcfa9dd1be01f221e0c00bfed52e>
Youth off the street. 2019. [Online]. Accessed through <https://youthoffthestreets.com.au/>
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