School-based service delivery for homeless students: Relevant laws and overcoming access barriers.

Abstract

Schools in the United States are facing a record number of homeless students. These students are highly at-risk for experiencing negative life outcomes, and they face considerable academic and social-emotional functional impairments. To help address the complex needs of homeless students, this article reviews the intersection of laws and practices that impact homeless students, as well as contemporary school-based service delivery efforts to support the academic and social-emotional needs of these students. In addition, this article also reviews several barriers to school-based service delivery for homeless students and ways to overcome these barriers. These barriers include confusion regarding consent and record-sharing procedures, ineffectively utilizing homeless liaisons, and misapplying tenants of Multitiered Systems of Support (MTSS), which is a school-based service-delivery framework that has been adopted by and implemented in many U.S. schools. Ultimately, this article aims to provide members of school communities with practical information that they can use to support the homeless youth they encounter and serve.

The Student Homelessness Crisis and the Role of School Psychology: Missed Opportunities, Room for Improvement, and Future Directions

“…In a recent review, Sulkowski and Joyce‐Beaulieu () identify five barriers to school‐based service delivery for homeless students and ways to overcome these barriers. These include addressing record‐sharing problems, issues related to obtaining consent for services, limitations in the scope of practice of homeless liaisons, inappropriate use of exclusionary evaluation criteria, and the misapplication of multitiered systems of support (MTSS) principles.…”

“…These include addressing record‐sharing problems, issues related to obtaining consent for services, limitations in the scope of practice of homeless liaisons, inappropriate use of exclusionary evaluation criteria, and the misapplication of multitiered systems of support (MTSS) principles. Although discussing ways to overcome all of these barriers is beyond the scope of this article, if school psychologists are knowledgeable of key pieces of legislation that aim to reduce barriers to educational access, they can become stakeholders in efforts to support homeless students (Masten et al., ; Sulkowski & Joyce‐Beaulieu, ). In this regard, the most relevant piece of legislation that has been passed to this date is reviewed in the following section.…”

“…School psychologists should work with homeless liaisons to identify homeless students and coordinate needed services for these students (Masten et al., ; Sulkowski & Joyce‐Beaulieu, ; Sulkowski & Michael, ). Often, homeless liaisons lack training in understanding assessment practices, developmental psychology, and ecological systems, which can attenuate the efficacy of their efforts in this regard.…”

“…Additionally, it is important to prevent homeless students from being denied access to educational services because of IDEIA exclusionary criteria. Because of residential instability, exposure to adverse life experiences, and cumulative risk factors, it is not fair or legally permissible to forestall the initiation of assessment and intervention services for homeless students if they could benefit from these services (Masten et al., ; Sulkowski & Kaczor, ).…”

Longitudinal effects of RtI implementation on reading achievement outcomes

“…Many state education agencies, including the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE; n.d.), have transitioned from describing Response to Intervention (Rtl) models to describing multitiered systems of support (MTSS). MTSS integrates RtI concepts of intervention and disability identification with principles of systems‐level change and school‐wide data analysis (Kansas Department of Education, ; Sulkowski & Joyce‐Beaulieu, ). In this study, RtI is conceptualized as a systems‐level framework whose goals and scope are aligned with MTSS.…”