For homeless students, the lack of a safe place to sleep often is only one of several traumas that affect their academic progress in school, finds a new Chapin Hall study.
Based on in-depth interviews with more than 215 school-age children who have experienced homelessness, the report suggests that efforts to support homeless students academically must be integrated with supports to help them cope with family and other traumas, too. The report found, for example, that more than 40 percent of homeless students also had been in foster care, and 35 percent had at least one parent die. More than 1 in 4 students had been homeless with their families before becoming homeless on their own.
