Supporting young children in family homeless shelters through cross-systems collaboration: Building Early Links for Learning

• In Event: 1-124 - Responding to family homelessness: Efforts to protect development and promote resilience in early childhood

Integrative Statement

This presentation provides evidence testing a multidimensional, cross-systems program to boost the developmental appropriateness of shelters for families with young children experiencing homelessness while promoting preschool enrollment as a key protective factor. Most children who stay in family shelters are under 6 years old and are at risk for poor developmental outcomes. Nevertheless, many show resilience. Resilience science has stressed the importance of positive home environments and quality early childhood education (e.g., child care and preschool) for protecting healthy development and promoting resilience. However, homelessness has certain unique features that interfere with families’ abilities to control their home environments in shelter and other features that act as barriers to preschool enrollment.

The Building Early Links for Learning (BELL) initiative in Philadelphia had two aims: (1) promote shelter spaces, practices, and policies that are developmentally appropriate for families with young children, and (2) promote cross-systems collaboration between emergency housing and early childhood education (ECE) to increase preschool enrollment among children staying in shelter. Key activities involved partnership-building between shelters and local ECE providers, including collaborative assessment of shelter features, mutual developmental education with respect to trauma, family homelessness, and the importance of ECE, and communicating enrollment procedures.

We took a pre-post design across two years of the initiative and an additional intermediate assessment point for preschool enrollment. All city-funded emergency housing and transitional housing programs for families in Philadelphia participated. We hypothesized that scores reflecting shelter developmental appropriateness would increase. We also hypothesized an increase in the percentage of preschool-aged children staying in shelter enrolled in early childhood education programs.

Shelter staff completed the ACF Early Childhood Self-Assessment Tool for Family Shelters with a partner from a local ECE provider. This is a standard measure of five areas relevant to shelters supporting the development of children aged birth-to-five. This was done twice, once around the beginning of the initiative and then a year later at the end of the initiative. Each site also identified action-steps to improve developmental appropriateness. BELL funded identified capital improvements (e.g., developmentally appropriate toys; installing breastfeeding spaces) and arranged for trainings on commonly identified topics. Paired-samples t-tests revealed statistically significant increases in three areas: Wellness and Development (t[15] = 2.30; p = .04), Workforce and Training (t[15] = 2.44; p = .03), and Programming (t[15] = 1.94; p = .01). Improvements in Health and Safety were a non-significant trend (t[15] = 1.85, p = .09).

All parents reported to staff whether each preschool-age child staying in shelter was enrolled in an early childhood education program at three points in time: once at the beginning of the initiative, in the middle (about 6 months later), and at the end (about 18 months after baseline). Results indicate an increase from the baseline rate (52.2%) to the rate 18 months later (65.0%). This corresponds to a 24.5% proportional increase in preschool enrollment.

Activities aimed at cross-system collaboration between emergency housing and early childhood education may remove barriers to key supports implicated in resilience.

Authors

• J. J. Cutuli, Rutgers University - Camden
  Presenting Author

• Janette E. Herbers, Villanova University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sara Shaw, Child Trends
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Vrabic, Villanova University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Teresa Cherry, Philadelphia Office of Homeless Services
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joe Willard, People's Emergency Center
  Non-Presenting Author