Foster children experience multiple barriers and challenges that, amongst other issues, prevent them from achieving academically. At the age of 18, foster youth are forced out of the Department of Children and Families care, leading many of them to become homeless or to return to the homes from which they were displaced. Scholarly literature and…

Homeless youth and youth in foster care are often unprepared for the transition to adulthood. Given the economic benefits of college, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to examine the college experiences of these vulnerable youth. GAO examined: (1) college enrollment and completion for foster and homeless youth; (2) the extent to…

Homeless individuals with co-occurring disorders (CODs) of severe mental illness and substance use disorder are one of the most vulnerable populations. This article provides practitioners with a framework and strategies for helping this client population. Four components emerged from a literature review: (1) ensuring an effective transition for…

Three years of outcome data for foster youth (n = 106) discharged from a one-of-kind residential education service are presented. Findings were that 50% of respondents attended college at some point. Youth reported having 2 or 3 jobs a year with at least one bout of unemployment. Most of the non-college bound youth reported working in low-wage…

To help explain why some young people move from recreational drug use to substance abuse, twelve in-depth interviews were conducted with young people who had experienced problematic substance use. The data were supplemented by statistical data on 111 young people. The researchers found a variety of "structural" factors that help explain…

Using intensive qualitative interviews with 40 homeless youth, this study examined their early family histories for abuse, neglect, and other family problems and the number and types of transitions that youth experienced. Multiple forms of child maltreatment, family alcoholism, drug use, and criminal activity characterized early family histories…

This article describes stressful life events experienced by a multi-shelter sample of 162 homeless adults in the Central Florida area. Participants included homeless single men (n = 54), homeless single women (n = 54), and homeless women with children (n = 54). Subjects were interviewed with a modified version of the List of Threatening…