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Essay on Effective Intervention for Homeless Youth

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As previously discussed, homelessness among youth in the Houston / Harris County area is a growing population with far reaching consequences for this group. They can be identified as a cultural group as they identify with others who have shared experiences and commonalities. Some of the serious struggles, identified in part I, homeless youth face are the increased probability of becoming victimized on the streets, higher risk of being infected with a STD or HIV, becoming pregnant, entering the criminal justice system, not having access to medical treatment, employment, housing, or education and job training. Without resiliency, the bleak outlook on life has the power to destroy their self-efficacy leaving them with low self-esteem. …show more content…

The strengths model emphasizes that the capacity for growth and recovery is an innate ability of human beings” (p. 2). Merely offering supportive services can improve human connectedness among between homeless youth and society reducing negative self-esteem and self-image thus creating greater self-reliance. Supportive services indirectly provides social inclusion, social cohesion, and social empowerment through direct services, such as comprehensive case management, housing, independent living, life management skills, vocational training, cognitive-behavioral intervention, and inspirational motivation. Supportive studies indicate “…promising results regarding higher levels of social connectedness and a trend towards decreased feelings of hopelessness were found in a study about the evaluation of the impact of a relationship based intervention among homeless youth” ( Krabbenborg et. al, p. 2). Key elements of a strengths based intervention are to get these disenfranchised youth to draw on their positive attributes instead of negative life challenges they have encountered while introducing them to community resources. The most inspiring economical of all interventions, the strengths based perspective, believes anyone. However, the strengths perspective can be time consuming as it seeks to make changes from within. A different, yet traditional,

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