Profiles of risks and resources for young children who stay in Philadelphia shelters

New findings

Families with young children in Philadelphia homeless shelters often face a variety of challenges, including poverty, lack of stability, and other threats to their health and wellbeing. There are also great opportunities to support child and family resilience from providers and agencies that serve them, including early childhood programs.

Young children who stay in family homeless shelters experience very high rates of different risk factors, even compared to other children their age in Philadelphia. Many of these risks begin before a shelter stay, and start at birth for many children. Still, most children staying at shelters served by the Building Early Links for Learning (BELL) project also enroll in early childhood care and education programs. Both certain risk factors and certain resources tend to happen in the lives of individuals, producing profiles of risk and protection. There are opportunities to support child and family resilience.

Figure 1. Young children who stayed in family shelter already had higher rates of risk experiences when they were born compared to all other young children in Philadelphia.

A recent peer-reviewed research paper from the Building Early Links for Learning (BELL) project uses information from Philadelphia to examine how common are these challenges and opportunities. These different risks and resources also tend to go together in 4 different combinations—or profiles—in the lives of children who stay in shelter. Over time, one of these profiles predicted the likelihood of whether a child will have an out of home placement by child welfare after shelter. The findings can be helpful to providers who serve children before, during, or after a shelter stay. They are also helpful to anyone who wants to know about how the experiences of young children who stay in family shelter are the same or different from other young children in Philadelphia, overall.

We analyzed longitudinal data from 8 birth cohorts of children born in or around Philadelphia, including those who would later stay in family shelters. Compared to all other young children in Philadelphia, we found that children who stayed in shelters had been exposed to a range of risk factors at much higher rates, including elevated lead levels, poor birth outcomes, and limited access to prenatal care. We also found that these children were more likely to have experienced prior child welfare placements and prior shelter stays. Many or most of these risk experiences happened before they stayed in shelter, but providers can use these findings to understand a bit about families’ current needs based on their past experiences.

Figure 2. Young children who stayed in family shelter had higher rates of risk experiences before the particular shelter stay we focused on, compared to all other young children in Philadelphia.

Despite these challenges, we found that many children in shelters were enrolled in early childhood programs. In fact, 66.1% of children were enrolled in any early childhood program, and 42.3% were enrolled specifically in a high-quality program. All of this information comes from children staying in shelter during 2 years of the BELL program. These high rates might suggest that BELL is helping families and providers enroll in early childhood programs.

We also identified four distinct profiles of children based on their age, risk factors and early childhood program enrollment. Children in one profile—those more likely to have had a child welfare placement before the shelter stay and also be enrolled in high-quality early childhood programs—were less likely to have a child welfare placement (e.g., foster care) after leaving shelter. This finding suggests that early childhood programs may be particularly beneficial for children who have experienced prior trauma.

Read a version of the article here or obtain the final published version from the journal.

Acknowledgements:

We acknowledge and appreciate the cooperation of the City of Philadelphia, especially the Office of Homeless Services, the Department of Human Services and the Office of Children and Families, the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services, the Department of Public Health, and the Building Early Links for Learning team at HopePHL^TM.

Portions of this work were funded by grants to HopePHL^TM from the Vanguard Foundation Strong Start for Kids Program and the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Vanguard Foundation, The United Way, the City of Philadelphia, or HopePHL^TM.

J. J. Cutuli is a paid consultant with HopePHL^TM and the Building Early Links for Learning project. Omari Baye is an employee of HopePHL^TM. Sarah Vrabic was an employee of HopePHL^TM when she worked on this research.