Previous Award Number: R305H190064
Previous Awardee: Rutgers University

Co-Principal Investigator: Cintron, Sandra

Partner Institutions: Camden City School Public School System and Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers

Purpose: Students who experience homelessness are at risk for poor educational functioning, poor achievement, and poor attainment. To mitigate these risks, school districts are required to identify and provide services to students experiencing homelessness. However, it is often difficult for districts to determine whether and to what extent they are overlooking homeless students who should receive services. The purpose of this partnership is to help the Camden City School District (CCSD) improve their ability to identify and serve students experiencing homeless by using an integrated data system that links healthcare, human services, education, and other data for all citizens of Camden City.

Partnership Activities: Partnership activities include weekly meetings of key personnel, regular meetings with all school-based CCSD staff responsible for identifying and serving students experiencing homelessness, and building capacity within CCSD to produce an annual quantitative report on student homelessness.

Setting: This project will take place in Camden City, New Jersey.

Population/Sample: Participants include all students attending public school in Camden City New Jersey. The sample also includes parents and other adults linked to these students in the integrated data system as well as personnel of the CCSD.

Data Analytic Strategy: The core strategy is to capitalize on the value of population-wide integrated data to determine the rate of under-identification of homeless students, look for patterns in rates of under-identification that can be the target of intervention or practice and policy change and determine likelihood of under-identification across subsequent years. In addition, researchers will test for associations between education outcomes/indicators and homeless status: identified as homeless by the district, homeless but not identified by the district, and not-homeless students selected using propensity score matching. Researchers will construct dynamic family units to reflect each student in each household and apply integrated data to determine different categories of homelessness (doubled-up; in shelter; etc.), the presence of other risk factors (family adult substance use problem; family adult incarceration; etc.), and associated education indicators. Analyses will include descriptive statistics, nonparametric tests, and t-tests to reflect characteristics of homelessness and the utility of different data sources to improve identification.

Outcomes: Outcomes for this project include presentations on findings to local stakeholders and to groups that study and/or work with homeless populations. In addition, the partnership will produce an annual quantitative report on student homelessness peer reviewed publications.