Parents Keeping Homelessness A Secret? Who Might Speak Up For The Kids?

By
staff
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rural scene with barn in foreground and cultivated fields in the background
A barn on the edge of Hayfield - geograph.org.uk - 2298550 photo by Bill Boaden is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
As temporary home for a child or children, this barn might be terribly inadequate. But who might even know that it's home in order to assist them in their their plight?

Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more common for children to wind up — and grow up — in emergency shelters, or in other precarious living circumstances. Off the top of your head, who might you credit with an awareness of a child in such a difficult situation? Particularly when parents might, even from sheer embarrassment want to keep their homelessness a secret1?

Teachers? Maybe, although their contact with children may begin and end at the classroom door, or in accidental collisions in the hall.

Shelter operators? Quite possibly, though school support-staff may be lacking on site2.

Local education authorities? Probably not, at least not from learning about it through their limited encounters with children themselves.

So here’s an unusual class of people that you quite probably haven’t thought of, and who know stuff about kids that even their teachers and parents might not know.

Bus drivers.

Read more at vtdigger: Often unseen, bus drivers can help schools find and support homeless students

Footnotes

  1. Not to mention the very real possibility that parents might lose custody of their children if their homelessness is discovered.
  2. Try: Graduating From Homeless Shelter A Tough Challenge For Youth