Demonstration Projects
Demonstration Project Rural Host Homes for Basic Center Program
The Basic Center Program provides shelter and support services to assist youth in crisis, reunite them with their families (as appropriate), strengthen their family relationships, and help them transition to safe and appropriate alternative living arrangements where they can become independent, self-sufficient, contributing members of society. The Rural Host Homes Demonstration Project was designed to expand those services to runaway and homeless youth who reside in rural areas not served by shelter facilities.
Expanding Opportunities for Service
Organizations funded through this Demonstration Project are required to recruit, screen, train, and provide ongoing support to host home families that provide services to youth in their homes. While in the program, youth under age 18 receive:
- Shelter for up to 21 days
- Transportation
- Individual, family, and group counseling services
- Assistance staying connected with their schools or staying current with the curricula, in accordance with the provisions of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act
- An aftercare plan to ensure continuing support after they leave the program
Finding Solutions
Through the demonstration, the Family and Youth Services Bureau will attempt to assess the gap in services to rural runaway and homeless youth. The Bureau will evaluate whether host homes were utilized, and if the youth were able to receive the same services as those in large metropolitan areas.
Support Systems for Rural Homeless Youth: A Collaborative State and Local Demonstration
The Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB), in collaboration with the Children’s Bureau, has awarded five-year grants to six States: Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Vermont. The States are carrying out demonstration projects in rural areas, including Tribal lands and other rural Native communities. The aim is to help youth who are approaching young adulthood and independence but have few or no connections to a supportive family or community resources.
Specifically, grant awards provide funding to States to work with selected Transitional Living Program providers serving specific rural communities. Over the life of the demonstration, FYSB will provide annual grants of $200,000 for a total of $1 million per State. The funding will enable local community-based organizations to collaborate and influence policies, programs, and practices that affect the design and delivery of services to runaway and homeless youth, ages 16-21, in transitional living programs and independent living programs.
Focusing on Three Areas
The demonstration focuses on improving coordination of services and creating additional supports for rural youth to improve their circumstances and to enhance connections in three vital areas:
- Survival support services, such as housing, health care, substance abuse, and mental health
- Community, such as community service, youth and adult partnerships, mentoring, peer support groups, and Positive Youth Development activities
- Education and employment, such as high school and General Equivalency Diploma (GED) completion, postsecondary education, employment, training, and jobs
FYSB’s Learning Agenda
FYSB has a two-fold learning agenda. Internally, the demonstration has structured the Federal, State and local Support Systems for Rural Homeless Youth partnership as a learning community. Grantees participate in activities – such as annual meetings, monthly conference calls, webinars, and site visits – that foster the sharing of knowledge among demonstration partners. For its external audience, FYSB is conferring with the grantees on the design and execution of an evaluation that will take place in 2012 and 2013.
Early Stages of Implementation
The demonstration was designed to be conducted in two phases, beginning with a full year of planning followed by four years of implementation. For each phase, FYSB has placed strong emphasis on the need for youth participation as advisors and decision makers. Young people have played a prominent role in devising local plans and will actively participate in project operations.
Each of the six rural collaborations spent the planning year convening the community agencies and actors who are important to the three vital youth connections. After nine months, the collaborations submitted an implementation plan for FYSB's approval, outlining their goals, objectives, and work plans for the next four years.
Now, grantees are implementing the demonstration projects as outlined in their plans. Each project is distinctly different in a number of important ways including the number and the geography of the communities being served; the structure and organization of the State and local partnerships; the structure and composition of the local collaboration; and the modes and methods for recruiting and engaging young people. Because of this diversity, FYSB expects that the demonstration will produce valuable lessons about the variety of ways that local, youth-engaged, collaborative efforts can effect meaningful change in the policies and programs that support rural youth.
Colorado
Colorado’s project is part of the Colorado Safe Places-Continuum of Care, a pilot program that works with at-risk families as well as with homeless youth. Youth are sheltered in host homes, living with volunteer families within the community. The demonstration is operated at six sites. Project managers are working on ensuring the long-term sustainability of the program and creating a standardized referral system for homeless youth. The program also promotes Positive Youth Development through a marketing and branding campaign—part of which can be seen on its Ning.com social networking portal.
Iowa
Iowa has involved youth in building a community hub, which will help community members, social service agencies, and schools learn about youth homelessness and provide them with the resources to identify and assist homeless young people. Addressing the needs of an area that has suffered widespread unemployment, the demonstration project offers educational assistance and skill-building. The project promotes Positive Youth Development by enabling youth to tend horses at a local stable.
Minnesota
Minnesota will offer homeless youth housing for up to 18 months in apartments and host homes. The program will also feature an independent living skills curriculum, a peer support group, and activities, such as volunteering or attending a powwow, that promote youths’ positive development. The project has an advisory committee made up of youth who have experienced homelessness and state officials who deal with child-, youth-, and family-related issues. The project’s case managers come from Tribal communities and are able to provide culturally specific services and activities.
Nebraska
The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, the Nebraska Children and Families Foundation, and the Community Action Partnership of Western Nebraska are working to enhance and expand services to rural homeless youth. Through a series of focus groups, youth in the panhandle of Western Nebraska have provided insight on their frustrations and successes. Youth are putting together a leadership camp, creating a media campaign that chronicles their struggles and successes, and developing a peer program to help youth navigate services and opportunities throughout the panhandle.
Oklahoma
The Oklahoma Department of Human Services has teamed up with Youth and Family Services to address the needs of runaway and homeless youth in an underserved rural area. Extensive work has thus far been conducted in Watonga, OK, where youth have completed surveys and participated in several focus groups, sharing the challenges they face. Watonga youth have a particular interest in the development of a community wellness center, which the demonstration plans to help create, along with other community partners.
Vermont
Vermont’s YouthFactor NEK demonstration will engage young people in multiple initiatives related to employment and job training, transportation, and housing in and around Newport. Initial ventures include a Web-based, GPS-enabled community youth mapping project that identifies employment, community-service, and other positive, skill-building opportunities for teens. The project will explore and develop initiatives such as a mentoring program for older youth; youth-adult shared housing models; access to affordable housing for youth; a car-buyer program with repair training and matched-savings components; and preferential hiring programs with area employers.
Learn More about FYSB's Past Demonstration Projects>>> |
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