Engaging disadvantaged youths for a better future
Thesis: Nearly half of the 7 billion people in the world today are youth, majority of them living in third world or developing countries with disadvantaged backgrounds. Majority of these disadvantaged youth are disadvantaged because of their homelessness status (Levinson 5). As such, there is greater need to engage homeless youth so as to ensure a better future for the world.
Introduction
According to the 2008 UN Population Report, CIDA, the youth account for more than half of the population found in rural areas of developing nations where they live in abject poverty on not more than $2 a day. This cluster of human population is the most disadvantaged which renders them unable to reach their full potential owing to lack of resources and opportunities in their regions (Jentsch & Shucksmith 85). These areas are characterized by lack of infrastructure, health services, accessible learning institutions as well as opportunities for decent income. As a matter of fact, the future of this young men and women can only be fully bettered through engaging them positively to empower them (Hartjen 56). Generally, empowerment of the youth particularly in developing countries lies in provision of relevant skills, knowledge, tools together with opportunities. Failure to reach out and engage the disadvantaged youth would render them vulnerable to a host of negative future implications because they are of more limited experience. As a result, disadvantaged youth risk to develop a negative sense of “futurelessness,” despair along with fatalism that is not only bad for them going forth but also the future of the entire world.
Who are Disadvantaged Youths?
According to the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs, Disadvantaged youth refers to “young people without adequate access to education and health services; adolescents who have dropped out of school; pregnant adolescents; young single parents; young people who are HIV-positive or at particular risk of HIV/AIDS; young refugees or displaced persons; racial, linguistic and ethnic minorities; homeless youth; young people with disabilities; girls and young women affected by gender inequalities”(UN Habitat 6). In this paper, focus shall be on homeless youth and how to engage them for the greater good of the future with focus on state of homeless youth in the United States of America (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 7).
Homeless Youth
Homeless youth are defined as those individuals that are under the age of 18 and lack either parental, foster, or institutional care. The United Nations has outlined a number of minimum conditions required to qualify a person as homeless. As it is, the definition of an individual as a refugee is associated with the definition of homelessness owing to the fact that majority of refugees may are or may have been homeless. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs thus holds that homeless households are those lacking shelter that qualify to be regarded as living quarters. In this regard, therefore, the homeless youth are roofless, move around with their modest possessions, and sleep in such inhumane places as streets and doorways on a more or less frequent basis. This cluster of disadvantaged youth is also often called “unaccompanied” youth (Gruber 12). The number of homeless youth around the world is estimated to be evenly spread among females and males, with majority of them being between the 15 and 17 years bracket. As at June 2008, the Office of Juvenile and Deliquency Prevention in the U.S estimated that there are over 1.5 million homeless and runaway youth in the country. According to the 2007 U.S. Conference of Mayors report, homeless youth made up 1% of the entire urban homeless population. Furthermore, the National Alliance to End Homelessness in its 2007 study estimated that 7% of American youths are rendered homeless in any given year (National Coalition for the Homeless). To this point, it is worth noting that the homelessness of the youth contravenes Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights. This further justifies and necessitates the need to engage the homeless cluster of disadvantaged youth in the effort to secure a better future for them.
Contributing causes of homelessness for youth
Homeless youth form a complex population consisting of many disadvantaged youth having an array of problems. The causes of homelessness among youth which render them disadvantaged can be loosely classified into three groups: family problems, residential instability as well as socioeconomic factors.
i) Family problems – majority of the youth are homeless because of family conflicts or communication challenges. These family issues are usually linked to undifferentiated group of events such as conflict over sexual activity, sexual orientation, early pregnancy, single parenthood, alcohol and drug abuse, rejection or mistreatment by step-parent. Furthermore many youth especially boys become homeless because early estrangement from their parents or other family members.
In addition, family disruption such as separation and divorce are key contributors of homelessness among youth. This is because when there is increased pressure and disharmony in the marital relationship of parents, communication with children often assumes secondary priority and strains forcing children to become runaways. Such children walk out of homes because feel unloved or unwanted by their respective parents or families. Homeless youths are also as a result of being thruway kids or push-outs.
ii) Residential Instability – homelessness among youth is a king of residential instability that is widespread in many developing nations. By and large, residential instability that results in homelessness in youth is more of a process than an event. Homeless youth have been noted to have extensive moves as well as separations in the course of their lives. In other words, homeless youth have histories of a number of family disruptions as well as institutional interventions from time to time (Hamilton 36). In this respect, a significant number of homeless youth have history of much contact with foster care or other residential programs especially from a tender age. This children have residential instability in the sense that for a better part of their lives they been hanging in foster care, emergency shelters, residential learning institutions, psychiatric institutions, correctional centers, and the streets. Many of the children are left homeless immediately they come out of these institutions. Furthermore, youth are often returned wrongly to their initial homes as a result of alternative longer-term placements meaning that the youth grow old as homeless.
iii) Socioeconomic Pressures – family economics is a major social pressure that makes youth to be disadvantaged in terms of being homeless. Majority of Engaging Homeless Youths for a Better Future
The core factor for homelessness among youth is lack of appropriate kinds of services together with adequate supply of service. To this effect, the Western world is characterized by thousands of programs that aim to engage the young people at risk particularly because of homelessness. Some of these programs are global in nature while others are more remote in their outlook. The latter often target to shield the creation of dangerous rearing or developmental conditions for children in families, schools and the larger community (Taylor 89). Most of these programs purpose to ensure children have decent places to stay with humane living conditions though many of the projects seek to see that the youth do not become homelessness in the first place.
In order to better the future of homeless youth governments and other non-governmental organizations including the private sector has undertaken a variety of programs to reach this goal.
1. Resource Center provision
Every Child has the right to acquire education, safety and a healthy life. More than 230,000 youths are released from foster care annually in the United States. Most of these youths are from the age of 21 transitioning towards adulthood. Generally, most homeless youths lack access to school institutions and better health facilities as compared to their privileged counterparts with supportive parents. A good example of a program that seeks to reverse this is the Tennessee Department of Children Services (DCS). This initiative supports the establishment of resource centers to boost efficient transition of disadvantaged youths with no access to employment, education health and housing (Youths Transition Advisory Council, 11). Specifically, the Tennessee DCS aims to transform homeless youths into more productive citizens in the future, create self-awareness and accountability among youths and also increase their opportunities to succeed in life. To do this, the Jim Casey Foundation collaborated with Tennessee (DCS) to strengthen resource center provision across the state through fund generation and implementation of the initiative (Youth Transitions Advisory Council). A number of three fully functional resource center facilities have already been established: one in Memphis, the other in Nashville while the third one is the Child and Family Tennessee project situated in Knoxville. These three facilities coordinate youth empowerment up to the age of 24.
Opportunity Passport is a principal module in resource Centre facilities that helps youths run their own individual accounts and adapt on how to manage their financial assets in a manageable manner. 75% of the disadvantaged youths engaging in services offered by the resource centers’ across the state got information from the (DCS) agencies.
Another key program in the U.S. designed specifically for homeless is the Housing First initiative. This programs strives to assist homeless individuals to reintegrate into society. It was launched by the Federal government’s Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Recommendations
Department of Children Services ought to create synergies with foster homes and homeless agencies to capacity build and empower more disadvantaged youths who lack access to social amenities such as funding for education. To do this, the collaborating partners should enter into agreements to contribute certain sums of money to fund this course.
New policy formulation and enactment are essential for free flow of funding and strategies development to mitigate youth empowerment. A good illustration is the determination made by the US House Assembly to better management and funding of the Tennessee Transitioning Youth Empowerment Act of 2010. The determination authorized the department of children’s services to develop a program aiming to offer services to youth graduating to adulthood from state custody (HOUSE BILL NO. 3114).
2. Community Development
This concept raises public awareness, accountability and also introduces to the society some of the challenges that youths face. A community has many definitions, but all of them point to the same meaning: a group of people linked with the same identity or needs for a common end result. In this case, a community may include school teachers, parents and youth agency officials among others (Shea 65). A community based on values of peace, harmony and unity creates opportunities for youths growing in such neighborhoods to aspire to success in life.
Countries such as the US have been shocked by the length the youth have gone to commit cruel violent acts even within schools. To respond to this, the Federal government has set up Community Learning Centers to expand learning opportunities for interested youths and encourage drug and violence-free surroundings. In addition, CLC facilities offer extensive technical course coverage, co-curricular activities, counseling of young stressed teenagers and mentoring opportunities.
Working in collaboration with grassroots level, community based organization enhances the efficiency of community development in the society. It creates a wide community audience thus offering disadvantaged youths the chance to be enlightened by such projects. As much as community development positively impacts youth engagement capabilities, there are challenges concerned with the approach. Youth’s competency or outcome in the end of induced community development approach is a sense of higher knowledge and better skills development (Pittman et al, 18). This benefits the psychosocial development of enhanced individual characteristics which make youths more responsible citizens in the future.
Recommendations
Community development strategies need to be transparent and accountable to the society especially to youths with social difficulties. This will create trust and a healthy relationship between stakeholders and disadvantaged youths. Partnerships between community groups and government agencies ought to be more formal by entering in official agreements to uplift the situation of the homeless youth across the nation. It should be made clear that the common binding factor for such engagement is the interest to support unprivileged youths.
3. Youth Employment and Training
Through training and employment opportunities, the homeless youth are able to develop a sense of belonging in the society and form the productive working class to the greater good of the society (Bonnell et al, 12). It is an indication that one is in transition into adulthood. Offering quality education to the homeless youth increases their chances of getting decent employment in the future. When the youth are literate and economically empowered they will be able to provide better living standards for themselves and their dependents. This in effect will break the cycle of homelessness and the number of disadvantaged youth in the future. is a sure way for youths to get employed in the future.
Recommendations
To reduce the amount of unemployed youth’s evaluation and assessment procedures ought to be conducted to determine the scope of their capability in the workforce. This will encourage entrepreneurship, career awareness, planning and job advancements in a limited time (Gruber, 60). In addition to this, counseling and support groups ought to be encouraged during youth transitioning into adults. Most adolescents need to be guided on decision making choices and accountability in life. Such services would go a long way towards achieving a successive future. This need is more prevalent in foster and homeless youths who did not have parents to guide them through important stages of growing up and handling change.
4. Leadership skills
Adjusting youth forums to meet their needs is an effective strategy to create opportunities for success. Leadership skills can be integrated into youth organizations for a positive purpose. Involvement of youths in organizational structures engages them to become participants of a greater good in society. Youth led models enhance the capacity of disadvantaged youths in society to become active decision makers in society (Paul et al, 12). Partnerships between youths and adults ensure continued responsibility awareness for youths, while trying to accomplish the goals set forward.
In addition partnership agreements between adults and youths, to acquire leadership skills, increases participation by youths and their willingness to transform. Not all organizations are willing to offer youths the chance to experience responsibilities of handling such companies (Hamilton, 22). This setback creates a void which is hard to fill in the forthcoming future. Giving disadvantaged youths the opportunity to experience real life challenges and threats in an authoritative manner grooms them into effective decision makers.
Recommendations
Managerial organizations ought to accommodate leadership skills evaluations for youths who are interested in capacity building their skills and learn more. Introducing leadership skills and integrating them in learning institutions will go a long way to position the disadvantaged youth in an empowered status and better their future. In addition, this is a sure way to increase involvement and participation of youths with difficulties at an early age and also increases perfection in decision making (Delgado, 76).
Conclusion
Disadvantaged youths include a wide range of young adults with difficulties of meeting their needs. This could include lack of education, lack of home, parents and support among others (Delgado 45). Lack of such facilities and social belonging among youths leads them to become stigmatized within the society as hooligans and drug addicts. It is evident that homeless youth stand to benefit from programs established to meet their immediate needs such as sheltering, food and clothing. In this respect, programs that reduce institutional demands and provide a variety of beneficial services serve to help homeless youth to regain their stability. It is impossible to come to terms with disadvantaged youths if concerned stakeholders are not aware of the causes and consequences as to why most youths are disadvantaged. Strategies to mitigate consequences of being disadvantaged are employed according to the nations or society’s principles. Integrating youth forums into an already existing societal law takes time for transition to take place (Ansell 23). A guaranteed option is the introduction of these strategies at an early stage of children’s life before it is too late to exclude them from the inevitable. In summary, therefore, homeless youth should be afforded educational outreach programs, transitional living programs, and assistance in finding job training and employment opportunities, as well as health that is customized for the homeless youth. Finally, efforts should be made to make sure that children do not end in the streets or become homeless.
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