Client satisfaction surveys give clients a voice in the planning and management of services. While their use is quite widespread, they have hardly at all been used in the evaluation of shelters for homeless youths. In this article, the authors present findings of a client satisfaction survey conducted among residents of a shelter for homeless…

Eight homeless people were interviewed about their experiences of health and social services. Three themes emerged: responsibility, identity, and feeling trapped. Although some felt they were responsible for their own situation and avoided help, most turned to formal channels for help, but professionals were often seen as offering unwanted labels…

Objective: High levels of domestic violence, mental illness, and alienation from authorities are associated with high incidence of children/adolescents living on the streets in low and middle income countries. The Equilibrium Project (Programa Equilibrio) was created to facilitate social reintegration through a virtual partnership between an…

The aim of this study was to examine the perceptions of homeless youth of the care they receive. Since we wanted to involve homeless youth as participants in this project, we adopted the approach of peer-research. This form of collaborative research has a major role for homeless youth in making an inventory of the problems. A parallel is drawn…

The cost of health care services and supports for mental health and addictions is important to know. In order to calculate it, one must know "who" is receiving "what" is being provided by "whom" at what "price". Without tracking these types of data, it is difficult to know the cost of the activities being…

This paper sets out to explore the relationship between popular education and the changing South African political landscape through case study research of the Victoria Mxenge Housing Development Association. The research took place over an extended period of time from 1992-2003 and discusses how popular education was advocated by the South…

Thirty-five in-depth, face-to-face interviews were carried out with sentenced male prisoners shortly before their release from prison. All but two of them had been incarcerated on at least one prior occasion, and had served an average of five previous prison sentences. A quarter of them had been flagged by the prison staff as being at risk for…

In northern Nigeria, over 80% of the unskilled and uneducated adolescent street boys, or "Almajiris", are from the ethnic Hausa-Fulani tribes. They depend on street begging and menial jobs for daily survival. In dealing with the situation, state vocational centers were established as the Millennium Hope Project (MHP) to provide the boys…

This publication contains the papers presented at the 5th Annual Conference of National Academy for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (NAIRTL) and the 9th Galway Symposium. Presenters from across Ireland and overseas share their perspectives. The theme of engagement touches on the very heart of what a "higher" education…

Each night, around 20,000 people--both adults and children--make the streets of Dhaka (the capital city of Bangladesh) their home. Living amongst the noise, rubbish, and traffic, thousands of families walk down the streets of Dhaka, looking for a safe place to rest for just a few hours each night. Trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, the…

A serious problem in Botswana is the large number of girls and young women who drop out of school. Just over half of the female population attends secondary schools, and the percentage of school-enrolled females has fallen in recent years. Few researchers have studied the dropout problem in Botswana. Twenty-four individuals selected for this study…

This study compares hope in street youth, former street youth, and school youth (aged 12-18) in Tanzania. Responding to Snyder's hope theory, the author argues that not only personal agency but also the stability of living context (street, shelter, home) shapes hopefulness. Employing qualitative and quantitative analyses, the author presents a…

Children who experience homelessness are at risk of poor health and well-being, and negative social outcomes. They are often exposed to stressful life events, such as domestic violence, parental mental health difficulties and family breakdown. Although many experience difficulties in remaining engaged in school, children report that schools can…

In an effort to address the issue of youth homelessness in Australia, Regional Extended Family Services (REFS) have developed a wilderness-based therapeutic intervention. REFS aim to provide early intervention services for young people at risk of homelessness, and their families. This study examined the outcomes of the REFS wilderness program by…

Using institutional ethnography, I demonstrate how one young man's efforts to find housing are shaped in relation to a complex institutional maze through which the immigration, child welfare, social assistance, and sheltering systems are linked. My goal is to show how a particular person's narrative can be used to illuminate the general…