This blogpost by the Commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) highlights the challenges facing homeless pregnant mothers, babies, and toddlers. To address these challenges, the Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF’s) Family and Youth Services Bureau and the Office of Head Start support collaboration between Runaway and Homeless Youth and Early Head Start grantees serving both youth in transitional living programs and maternity group homes, as well as children enrolled in Head Start programs. National Training and Technical Assistance Centers will play a crucial role in this collaboration, sharing resources and training materials on early childhood development for young parents and families experiencing homelessness. By encouraging this collaborative relationship, ACF’s two-generation approach strives to meet the needs of parents and their children.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation issue brief examines how two agencies, Alameda County, California and the Colorado Department of Human Services use continuous quality improvement (CQI) in implementing their programs that address youth at risk of homelessness. CQI is a process-oriented evaluation that supports the enhancement of programs and practices through ongoing collection analysis of real-time data to identify and test changes in program implementation. Key components of this brief look at the CQI process design features at these two agencies, how the CQI process affected the operation of the agency’s interventions to prevent homelessness among youth and young adults who have been involved in the child welfare system, and what advice the two agencies have for other entities that may use CQI in their program reviews.

The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness developed this categorized list of resources, which includes criteria and benchmarks for communities to use in implementing strategies to address homelessness. The resources are organized according to overarching goals, specific objectives, and sub-objectives. The four overarching goals include: Ensure Homelessness is a Rare Experience, Ensure Homelessness is a Brief Experience, Ensure Homelessness is a One-Time Experience, and Sustain an End to Homelessness.

This Annie E. Casey Foundation blogpost profiles A Place 4 Me, a community-based organization in Cleveland that improves outcomes for housing of youth transitioning out of foster care. The blogpost discusses the organization’s goals for ending youth homelessness and how it integrates support systems and services by offering young peer navigators who have transitioned out of foster care.

This Chapin Hall research-to-practice brief examines the connection between youth homelessness and educational attainment. The brief identifies research that demonstrates how young people encountering family instability are more likely to have unstable living circumstances and are at a greater risk for education disruption at the secondary school level. The brief also notes how youth encountering homelessness are less likely to enroll in and complete college or post-secondary education.

This Administration for Children and Families blogpost, authored by the Director of the Office of Head Start and Early Childhood Development, identifies the reach of Head Start programs to serve children within families that experience homelessness and the links between Head Start and other human service agencies. Additionally, the blogpost links to Head Start training opportunities that include eight interactive learning modules that lead to receiving professional development certificates, and notes three forthcoming webinars that share effective practices for building organizational readiness, developing partnerships, and addressing service challenges in local Head Start communities.