Descriptive Overview: African American Youth in Transitional Living Programs

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Descriptive OverviewAfrican American Youth in
Transitional Living Programs

• Von E. Nebbitt, PhD
• Assistant Professor
• E. Franklin Frazier Center for Social Work
  Research
• Howard University

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Introduction

• African American youth are one of our nations
  most vulnerable populations
• They are
• Over-represented in Juvenile Justice System
• Under-served by mental health community
• Failed by public education
• Second lease likely to be insured
• Most likely to live in impoverish urban areas

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Introduction

• African American youth are also over-represented
  among runaway/homeless youth in urban areas
• Being homeless probably increases their
  vulnerabilities exponentially
• It is likely that runaway/homeless AA youth are
  more susceptible to gangs and involvement in
  alternative market activities to wit,
  prostitution drugs
• BUT WE DONT KNOW THIS FOR SURE!

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Introduction

• The current state of Runaway/Homeless African
  American youth is ambiguous at best and totally
  unknown at worse
• A thorough portrayal of this population is not
  readily available in the empirical literature
• Therefore, a definitive statement about their
  physical, mental, academic and emotional status
  is not possible
• A logical first step in this area of research is
  to began to pull together the pieces of this
  puzzle

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Purpose

• The purpose of this presentation is to provide a
  descriptive overview of African American youth in
  transitional living programs

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Data Source

• Family Youth Service Bureaus (FYSB)
• Transitional Living Program (TLP)
• FY 2002 FY2006
• Transitional Living Program
• Provide homeless youth ages 16 to 21 with
  stable, safe longer-term residential services up
  to 18 months (or longer if the youth has not
  reached age 18)

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Population Characteristics

• Original data set includes 20391
• Includes five waves 2002 to 2006
• 33 (6617) African American
• 57 (11636) female
• 78 (16242) heterosexual

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Subsample Criterion

• African American youth
• Complete data (i.e. entry, service and exit data)
  for all years
• No repeat data (Only one visit for this youth
  within this data)
• Resulted in subsample of 4263

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What did we find?
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Demographic Characteristics
Data on age (date of birth) and sexual
orientation did not convert to SPSS
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Living Situation at Entry
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Referral Source
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Employment Status at Entry
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Percent in Foster Care
Youth in Foster Care Spent on Average 3.75 years
in care
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Percent in Juvenile Justice Involved
Youth in Juvenile Justice System Spent on Average
4 years in system
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School Status
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Highest Grade Completed
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Teen Parenthood
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Limitations to this exploration

• Some important indices lost in conversion
• High number of missing observation on foster care
  and juvenile justice involvement
• Wasnt able to disaggregate to examine annual
  trends
• Many indices are grouped (i.e., highest grade
  completed 9 12)

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What do we know from TLP data?

• Twice as many females use TLP
• Most in TLP youth come from private residents
• Very few of the youth have children
• Most are in school of have graduated or have GEDs

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What dont we know from TLP data?

• Actual scope of the population or the problem
• Rate of runaway/homeless service use for African
  American youth
• Individual, familial community antecedence to
  runaway/homeless episodes
• Factors that contribute to stable residency or
  independent living following an episode

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Next Steps

• Identify existing runaway/homeless youth data
  sets that included African American youth to
  attempt to understand the breadth and the scope
  of the problem
• Prevalence and annual incidence of runaway /
  homelessness among African American youth
• Set-up runaway / homeless surveillance systems in
  urban areas where African American youth are
  likely to hang-out (i.e., housing projects)

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Thank You

• Any Questions?