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Abstract
Despite well documented traumatic impact of homelessness, there are few interventions that address its effects for the more than 1,508,265 students identified as homeless by the United States Department of Education (Atlena, et al., 2019; Cronley & Evans, 2017; National Center for Homeless Education [NCHE], 2019). In 2019 an informal needs assessment by the LancCo MyHome, identified the need for an advocate program for homeless youth. Champions for Teens (C4T) is a pilot program that was conceptualized and implemented by myself, school social worker, in the Donegal School District to meet this need. C4T does not resolve the complex issue of homelessness, but its goal is to address some of the effects of homelessness on youth by increasing the factors that promote their resilience. Ecological systems theory lends understanding to the distressed environment of homeless youth, while resilience theory and social capital theory provide insight to the mediation of developmental distress. The literature demonstrates that social support is crucial to the survival of homeless youth. However, there are few intervention studies in general, fewer that attempt to increase social capital, and fewer still that are based in schools. Mentoring programs and the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program are effective interventions for similarly at risk populations, giving legitimacy to the effectiveness of interventions that utilize caring adults from the community to increase resilience. Using a mixed-method, single-case, multiple baseline design this study established that C4T was effective at attaining the most immediate goal: to establish a connection between a youth who is homeless and a caring adult, and to increase the social support of the homeless youth. Qualitative research methods were used to identify core program components and improvement strategies. This study will also build on the literature for intervention development: to move from risk identification to risk alleviation, and ultimately the resilience of homeless youth.