Project Activities
The researchers will iteratively develop the intervention by integrating information about long-term and short-term trends in student homelessness in the study district as well as input and feedback from school and district personnel, external social service providers, and parents and youth with lived experience of homelessness. They will also conduct a pilot study and cost analyses.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The project will occur in the Camden City School District (CCSD) in New Jersey. The CCSD currently operates 16 schools that serve students in prekindergarten through the 12th grade.
Sample
The development sample includes 30 Camden families that include youth who experienced homelessness while attending public schools within the CCSD; the CCSD homeless education liaison; up to 80 school and district personnel across roles and locations within the CCSD (such as administrators, resource workers, teachers, paraprofessional support staff, front office staff, lunch staff, bus drivers); staff of Camden child welfare, health care, and housing agencies; and up to 10 homeless education liaisons from other districts. The pilot sample includes CCSD staff as well as students and staff of 14 of CCSD's 16 schools (7 treatment, 7 control).
The proposed intervention creates protocols for school systems to coordinate with families, school personnel, and social services in identifying and responding to student homelessness. The final product will be an intervention manual and associated materials that other districts can use to implement the protocols and procedures. These protocols and procedures focus on two levels of coordination: district and school. At the district-level, the homeless education liaison will establish and communicate a district-wide, systematic centralized process for identifying student homelessness. This includes (1) identifying students who are experiencing homelessness on routine school and district forms, (2) using available education data to identify students who are potentially experiencing homelessness, (3) working with social services to identify students who are at risk for or are currently experiencing homelessness, and (4) creating annual reports that track identification of student homelessness and key indicators of identified students' educational functioning (such as attendance rate, school mobility rate, ELL-status, IEP-status, and proficiency on academic achievement testing). At the school-level, resource workers will (1) complete professional development trainings with the homeless education liaison to build capacity and expertise, (2) conduct presentations on student homelessness for school staff, and (3) complete explicit parent-engagement activities designed to build trust and raise parents' awareness of availability of school and district support for students experiencing homelessness.
Research design and methods
The researchers will engage in a four-phase iterative process to develop and pilot the intervention. In phase 1, they will conduct a series of focus groups and interviews with school and district personnel, service agencies, liaisons from other districts, and parents and youth with lived experience of homelessness. Then, they will develop the initial intervention components. In phase 2, they will revise the intervention, including the procedural manual and materials. In phase 3, they will pilot the intervention to generate data on feasibility, fidelity, cost, and potential impacts and to see if the approach helps schools determine the number of students identified as experiencing homelessness, as well as these students' referrals to needed services, attendance rates, and school mobility. In phase 4, they will complete analyses, revise intervention materials, and disseminate results and products. Throughout the project, researchers will also analyze population-wide integrated education, health, and other data each year to test for changes in the student homeless population.
Control condition
The district-level homeless education liaison will be serving both treatment and control conditions. However, control schools will only receive business-as-usual supports for students experiencing homelessness that are provided by the district to all schools.
Key measures
The researchers will use Camden ARISE, an integrated data system, to build an indicator of student homelessness that incorporates district identified homelessness, homelessness identified by other sources (such as prior year status, siblings' homeless status, enrollment address), and family-related risk of student homelessness (such as an adult relative in household is incarcerated or has a mental health or substance abuse issues, or any household member has died from COVID-19). Student academic outcomes include proficiency on statewide assessments of math and the English language arts in grades 3 through 11 and attendance. Other student outcomes include school mobility, access and use of district services for English learners and students with disabilities, use of school district transportation services, and referrals to outside health and social services.
Data analytic strategy
During the development process, the researchers will translate, transcribe, and code the qualitative data before analyzing for recurrent themes. They will also analyze the population-wide integrated data set to provide descriptive statistics on student homelessness in the district. They will use these qualitative and quantitative results to inform intervention development and refinement. During the pilot, they will use multilevel linear or logistic regression to test for differences in the rates of identified student homelessness in treatment and control schools, as well the impact of the intervention on academic and other student outcomes in treatment schools. They will also run descriptive statistics on the feasibility and fidelity data.
Cost analysis strategy
The researchers will estimate costs during the pilot implementation phase. They will consider costs from district and societal perspectives for incremental and total costs in local and national prices. Data will include administrative records and effort self-report with costs based on local and national average prices.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Project contributors
Products and publications
Products: This project will result in a fully developed intervention to help school districts identify and support students experiencing homelessness. The project will also result in peer-reviewed publications and presentations as well as additional dissemination products that reach education stakeholders such as practitioners and policymakers.
ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.
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Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
