FOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS

INFORMATION BY TOPIC

Many homeless and street-involved youths have numerous and often complicated physical and mental health service needs and typically have a great deal of difficulty accessing mainstream services. The results are extremely high rates of mental illness, physical illness, and mortality. There are several ways that healthcare providers can become involved:

• Engaging in direct clinical work in either a paid or pro-bono capacity at a homeless youth service


• Consulting with homeless youth service providers around health issues in the form of trainings, programme development, and knowledge translation (i.e., helping youth providers keep on top of developments in evidence-based practice which may be applicable).


• Becoming an advocate. This can involve several tasks including (i) forming linkages and facilitating access between youth services and mainstream services, (ii) partnering with youth service providers in their efforts to advocate for increased funding, and (iii) engaging in policy forums/discussions around replacing discriminatory/exclusionary health and service policies with those that facilitate successful service delivery for this population.


• Conducting research in the area of youth homelessness. Research provides an opportunity to add to the knowledge base regarding effective treatments, provides resources and information to local youths and agencies, and can provide a forum for advocacy in both public and academic domains.


• Another very effective way of making a significant contribution is to advocate for and facilitate student/resident involvement in youth services. This may involve the development of clinical training rotations in partnership with youth agencies, and determining models of service delivery and supervision that fit the population. Such initiatives provide both excellent training opportunities for learners and ongoing high quality service delivery for youth providers.

Some examples of healthcare providers who have had considerable success in service development for homeless persons are Dr.Stephen Hwang, Dr. John Langley and Igor van Laere.