Proposed Research Report and Title

The title of this research is the determination of whether there exists a statistical and a significant relationship between the school-age children and homeless.

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Objectives

To make identification on whether there is any relation between the homelessness and the school-age children.

Research Purpose

2. Description, Explanation and Exploration

The purpose of the study is to determine if there exists any significant relationship between the case of school-going children and homelessness. In the world, there is a good number of school-age children who are homeless, and they spend their lives in the streets and other areas with no one to handle them. They find life difficult due to the inability to have adequate access to food, water, clothing and the parental love which is crucial in a growing child. Based on the details available, in the period 2008-2009, around 1 million children that were homeless were enrolled in learning institutions, and the figure rose to 1.5 million in 2012 (United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 2016). The census report that was done in the United States in 2013 showed that in that country, more than 2.5 million children did not have a place they can call home. The number has been rising over the years, and they cover a group of people that are marginalized and vulnerable in the school setting. They do encounter a lot of risks in their daily lives and trauma in comparison to what their non-homeless colleagues undergo. There is limited research on the relationship that exists between the homeless and the school-age children in the community (Bassuk, DeCandia, Beach & Berman, 2014). It is also hard to access details on the way the various stakeholders in the society like the teachers interact with them and the procedures that they follow to meet their educational needs.

The school going kids are at a critical stage of life meaning that if they are not handled in the right way, there is a high chance that they might end up being homeless. Parental love, emotional and mental stability are critical in realizing the growth and fulfillment of life to these young kids, and if they fail to be provided with them, they usually end up running away from home. Others may have lost their parents due to various issues like diseases or accidents, and if they are not supported by the rest of the family, they may become homeless as they strive to be independent. Being homeless has serious repercussions on the life of these school-age children for it affects their education, health, it leads to neglect and abuse, in addition to tearing families apart. It is possible to find that the kids are experiencing delayed development and they tend to experience many suspension in the lifetime in comparison to the children who have a home and live with their guardians. Their intellectual quotient (IQ) tends to experience some detrimental effects that are followed by poor academic performance. They are usually confronted by traumatic and stressful events every day, and this tends to affect their academic performance adversely.

The issue of homelessness on children in the school-going age is caused by many factors even though it is sometimes hard to determine the exact number of homeless due to the stigma associated with the issue. Families may fear that their children will be ridiculed for being homeless and they tend to keep the information away from the public domain. The United States department of health and human services reported that in 2010, 51% of the homeless children were in the age below 6% with the rest being in the school-going age (Morton et al., 2018). A good number of them were living in shelters, and old cars and in the streets. Poverty is one of the main factors that trigger homeless among the school-going children and the inability to access affordable housing care, the inability to access affordable health care services, inadequate food, and the inability to pay the various bills that they may be needed to meet. These children are highly likely to have experienced abuse in the past, or they are currently undergoing the issue leading to them running away from home to find a safe place that they can live (Bassuk, Richard & Tsertsvadze, 2015). Others may have experienced cases of depression, antisocial behaviors, aggression and anxiety and they are highly likely to experience problems with their peers meaning that they cannot manage to interact with them or even engage in a worthwhile conversation. They seem to be withdrawn, and this results from the adverse issues that affect their lives.

The trauma and hard-life experiences raise the cases of children engaging in cases of risky sexual behaviors, educational problems, and substance abuse. They tend to post poor grades in their educational results meaning that they never manage to hold a worthwhile position in society later in life. They never get to be monitored on what they are doing by their guardians meaning that they engage in activities that they learn in the world (Whitbeck, 2017). A good number of them live in areas that have high rates of crime meaning that a good number of them turn out to be criminals who are either gunned down leading to loss of life, or they are arrested and sent to prison. The study design process that can be used in this research process is the cross-sectional study which will involve the determination of the exposures and the outcomes of the research participants. The school-age children who will be selected to take part in this research process will be taken based on the exclusion and inclusion criteria that the investigators have set. It is a design that is suitable for doing population-based researches and surveys to collect data that involves an event in society. The determination of the relationships that exist between the school-going children and homeless will be determined to understand if there is any significant relationship between the two components. It is crucial to rely on a strategy that is cheap and fast and a procedure that will give an understanding of the exposures of outcome prevalence. The data that will be collected will be quantitative which will help in determining the relationship between independent and dependent variables in a given population.

Description of the Study Design/Quantitative

The research procedure can either utilize the descriptive or the experimental strategy, but in this case, the method that can be used is the descriptive. The experimental method involves having the subject being measured before and after the treatment process which may not work in this analysis process. The descriptive will manage to establish the relationships that exist between the variables, and a large sample will be critical in ensuring that the conclusion reached has a high level of accuracy. The biases level is likely to be low if there is a high participation level of the samples that are randomly selected.

The characteristic of the subject in the descriptive study process can affect the relationship of the variables that are being investigated like in this case the determination of the connection that exist between the school-age children and homelessness. Limiting these effects may involve the utilization of a sample that is less heterogeneous, or the features can be measured and then used in the analysis process. There will be no attempt made to influence or change the individual behaviors, but the observations are made just the way that they are in the field. Additionally, the study process can also be described as observational where the subjects can be observed on what they are doing without influencing these activities. This will ensure that they do not change their behavior when they know that they are being observed. They will thus act normally giving the investigator the opportunity to collect relevant data and information on the issue of the relationship between school-age children and homeless. In some cases, some of the kids may not be ready to be interviewed for fear that they are going to be punished for running away from home. Others may feel like the investigators want to capture them and have them moved to children homes, back to their parents or other facilities that host children that are homeless.

4. Identification of the Proposed Research Design/ Social Survey

The social survey research design process will be used in the process for it involves collecting information from a large group of people through procedures like structured interviews or the questionnaires. The school-age children can be interviewed on the way they feel and the issue of homeless and whether they have ever experienced it. By doing this, it will be possible to understand the relationships between the two concepts and the way that they are connected.

References

Bassuk, E. L., DeCandia, C. J., Beach, C. A., & Berman, F. (2014). America's youngest outcasts: A report card on child homelessness.

Bassuk, E. L., Richard, M. K., & Tsertsvadze, A. (2015). The prevalence of mental illness in homeless children: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 54(2), 86-96.

Morton, M. H., Dworsky, A., Matjasko, J. L., Curry, S. R., Schlueter, D., Chavez, R., & Farrell, A. F. (2018). Prevalence and correlates of youth homelessness in the United States. Journal of Adolescent Health, 62(1), 14-21.

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). (2016). The state of the world's children 2016: Executive summary. New York: UNICEF.

Whitbeck, L. B. (2017). Nowhere to grow: Homeless and runaway adolescents and their families. Routledge.