About Teen Feed
Imagine a 17-year-old girl whose parents have kicked her out. She has no food or money and needs to find a job. She begins to look into food banks and shelters that could give her the help that she needs. One day she comes across a non-profit organization that claims to feed 13-25 year olds every night of the week. She finds that Teen Feed has access to shelters, support programs and more. As she walks into Teen Feed, she is signed in and is pleasantly surprised with a plate of steaming pasta, salad, green beans, milk, bread and a homemade chocolate chip cookie. She is asked if she wants to talk with someone who can give advice about resources for health, job opportunities or anything that is on her mind. After the meal, she
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With the tremendous support of the community, Teen Feed responds to most basic needs of homeless and at-risk youth in the following focus areas: healthy meals and lives, youth support coordination, street outreach, healthcare access, and engaging the community through service. Teen Feed responds to the most basic needs of homeless youth with four integrated programs: Teen Feed Meal Program (STOP), Service Links for Youth (SLY), and Youth Access to Care (YAC).” Teen Feed tries their best to improve teens lives and helps them create the future they deserve. I have seen first-hand how this mission is actively being upheld. Teen Feed changes the teen’s lives and helps them find jobs, schools and health care …show more content…
In Washington, while there are not many rules about curfews, there are laws on runaways and truancy. A runaway is a youth under the age of 18 who has left their guardian for over 72 consecutive hours with out the consent form the guardian. According to National Network for Youth, runaways are not charged, but can be taken into custody by police officers without a warrant. In Washington, school attendance laws only apply to 8-17-year-olds. These ages vary greatly from state to state. The one explicit law around curfews in Washington is that the state is allowed to create one.
Some laws instead of making life better only make situations more difficult for the homeless. For example, National Network for Youth says that 82% of jurisdictions say that police can take runaways into custody. Another common law says that adopting a runaway is illegal even if the child has given their permission. Runaways are also classified as juveniles, status offenders, and delinquents. I believe that these labels are offensive, unruly and
Finkelstein, M. (2005). With no direction home: homeless youth on the road and in the streets. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
Although The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is a program that guarantees education for the homeless youth population, many homeless do not receive the proper services they need because they are not aware of available resources (Heinze & Jozefowicz-Simbeni, 2009). Many homeless youths do not have a safe place to stay during the night or do not have any family or friends to rely on for support. In addition, approximately 7% of youth members in the United States are left without a home because of high dependence on an addictive substance or because they have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder (Heinze & Jozefowicz-Simbeni, 2009). Services that could provide shelter for the youth are often underused. Research in homeless youth
Youth become homeless for a number of reasons, including: family violence and neglect, rejection due to sexual orientation or gender identity, the overwhelmed child welfare system and extreme poverty. These youth almost always have experienced unimaginable abuse and trauma, in their homes, their communities, and on the street. It is the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA)-funded services and programs that help to rectify the deep injustices that homeless youth experience on a daily basis.
Giffords, E., Alonso, C., & Bell, R. (2007). A Transitional Living Program for Homeless Adolescents: A Case Study. Child & Youth Care Forum, 36(4), 141-151. doi:10.1007/s10566-007-9036-0.
National Center for Homeless Education. (2013, October). Education for Homeless Children and Youths Program. Greensboro: U.S Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/programs/homeless/data-comp-0910-1112.pdf
Gwinnett County Public School (2010, June). Education for Homeless Children and Youth. Retrieved February 4, 2014, from http://www.gwinnett.k12.ga.us/gcps-mainweb01.nsf/F42D74FA4ECBBFED85257754006DDA21/$file/HEP_Parent_Brochure_10-11.pdf
Woelfer, J. P., & Hendry, D. G. (2009). Stabilizing homeless young people with information and place. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(11), 2300-2312.
I have heard stories from my friends that are horrible, especially considering they were all under 18 during these events within their lives. Therefore, I believe the homeless youth in our community need more attention due to their age and lack of confidence. For example, my boyfriend Alex was homeless when we started dating. All of his siblings were taken away separately from child services due to abuse, addiction and neglect within his family. He lived in a shelter where teens were using drugs, stealing and some were even into prostitution. I do understand that not all shelters are this way, but in his experience, he has lived in three different ones and all of them had some of these factors within them. I used to believe there were many options for the homeless, especially teenagers, but from my own second-hand experiences there are really not that many alternatives. “Sometimes it is safer to sleep on the street than some homeless shelters we came across”, suggests Alex Black, a former homeless youth. These shelters can be horrifying to the point that many teens, including Alex, run away. Society looks down on the homeless, creating a barrier surrounding our social structure, placing them at the bottom. Many people in our community believe it is not their place to help, some just are selfish or look the other way and keep on walking.“Whoever closes
The youth homelessness population is increasing because of the many challenges that these children or teens face in everyday life; It also continues getting larger every year because of the many youth who are getting into dangerous situations that force them to be homeless or thru their own choosing. One third of the homeless population is between the ages of 16-24, which is incredibly young and it is the prime years for an adolescent or young adu...
Gattis and Larson suggest, “interested parties could benefit from an improved understanding of the mental health needs of homeless adolescents. This knowledge could be used to identify youths at risk of becoming homeless and to provide appropriate services to those currently homeless” (p. 87). In short, education and knowledge regarding the homelessness in itself can do wonders. The homeless face many hardships including depression, anxiety, PTSD, discrimination, and suicidal thoughts. These are just a few things that homeless people face that the general population don’t take into consideration on a first glance or thought. Intervention and world of mouth will also help, because this is a topic society doesn’t necessary publicize, we don’t know much about it. If this is publicized in a positive way, the motivation and self-esteem from homeless people will also rise. The increase of access to insurance would also help prevent this. In order to get treated for any mental illness they have, they need insurance. With active treatment for a mental illness, this will heighten the likelihood of obtaining a reliable job. Which in turn, will essentially help prevent the homeless from being
Teenage runaways have different reasons for leaving home but all have the same reason for becoming homeless. They simply just do not have enough money. Others are drug and alcohol abusers and disabled people. With this list of people there must be some way that we can help these people.
In 2013, Covenant House provided services to more than 56,000 of these kids. Covenant House residential and community service center programs cared for 27,889 homeless kids, and Covenant House Street Outreach teams served an additional 28,221 homeless and at-risk youth on the streets in the 21 cities where Covenant House operates. Homeless youth programs provide youth with a stable foundation from which they can reunify with their families or develop skills to live independently. They aim to help youth increase economic independence through educational attainment and employment/career advancement (Appropriations: Runaway and Homeless Youth ACT,
O., & Burke, P. J. (2009). Lost in the shuffle: culture of homeless adolescents. Pediatric Nursing, 35(3), 154-161.
Based off the attention from modern media, youth homelessness has been on an unfortunate upslope in the United States within the past decade. Various factors tie into why this issue is becoming more prominent such as low income households being unable to afford children, LGBT youth rejection, and domestic abuse leading to children leaving home. Now, vagrancy has a severely negative impact on the development of young people as it inhibits them from developing academically, socially, and mentally and can also expose them to diseases and potentially various types of abuse, such as sexual and substance abuse. This is an issue that should be addressed, for the rising generations are America’s future, and so investing in the overall well-being of the