Social Workers' Role in Supporting Homeless Youth Podcast

Editor's note: This text-based course is a transcript of the Social Workers' Role in Supporting Homeless Youth Podcast, presented by podcast host Benjamin T. Bencomo, DSW LISW, LCSW, and podcast guest Cheryl Pooler, DSW, LCSW.

Learning Outcomes 

After this course, participants will be able to: 

• Explain what youth homelessness is and how it is defined by the federal government.
• Determine the role of social workers in supporting homeless youth.
• Identify evidence-based interventions for addressing youth homelessness.

Podcast Discussion

Ben: Thank you so much, and welcome. I am very excited to have our guest expert today, Dr. Cheryl Pooler. Dr. Pooler is a licensed clinical social worker. She has over 20 years of experience in community mental health as a therapist and psychosocial rehabilitation specialist for adults with severe and persistent mental illness. In 2009, Dr. Pooler accepted a social work position in the Homeless Outreach Department at Waco Independent School District in Waco, Texas. Dr. Pooler is also one of the co-founders of The Cove, a teen nurturing center for homeless youth. The Cove is a trauma-informed and exclusive environment where local youth expect to be welcomed and served with respect and dignity.

Dr. Pooler joined the Garland School of Social Work faculty full-time in 2017 as a full-time lecturer. Dr. Pooler also earned her DSW degree from the University of St. Thomas, St. Catherine, in 2009. She continues to advocate for homeless youth and families in her home community of Waco, Texas. Dr. Pooler, I am excited about our conversation today. It is good to see you again, my long-time friend and colleague. I have learned so much from you over the years, especially concerning working with homeless youth. Thank you for joining us and sharing your experience and expertise with us today. 

I always start our podcasts by asking our guests to share a little about their professional practice experience and path to social work. How did social work find you? And how did your path lead you to work with homeless youth in particular?

Cheryl: The thing I love about social work is there are so many different paths within the profession. You can have a broad range of experiences within the degree.

I have primarily worked in community mental health. I started working with adults with severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI). I spent fifteen years of my community mental health experiences working with SPMI adults. I did some work with children and youth during that time. I loved being a therapist and eventually worked my way into a management position and oversaw an extensive program for a mental health center in Louisville, Kentucky. We moved around a good bit after that in the name of higher education, which is how I ended up in Waco, Texas, but we are glad to be here.

Until we moved to Waco, most of my work had been in community mental health. On the side, I did some international adoption home studies. I have led anger management groups for men getting out of prison as part of their parole arrangements. Social workers are good at finding little gigs on the side to pad their pockets. After we moved to Waco, I became a parent later in life. My husband and I built our family through adoption. I worked at Waco Independent School District as a social worker, knowing I could be on the same school schedule as my children.

That was a serendipitous moment because I ended up in the homeless outreach office and found a new passion in social work that I would not have chosen for myself. After this, I began to work with homeless families and children. On the high school campuses, there were homeless youth who were unaccompanied and couch surfing, which led to my work with starting The Cove. Another organization I partner with is Unbound; it is an anti-trafficking endeavor here in Texas. A lot is happening in Waco and Texas in terms of advocating for our youth. I am happy to be a part of it and even lead some of it. It has been more than I could have ever imagined.

Ben: Thank you for sharing that. You and I share a passion for working with young people. A lot of my practice experience involves working with youth in juvenile justice and working with youth aging out of foster care. A lot of your work has involved direct practice work with homeless youth. The idea of a homeless young person who is still school-aged is very unsettling. From your experience, why would a person that young become homeless?

Cheryl: The reasons are very complex. Many times people might think that it is because the kid does not want to obey the parents' rules, or they did not like a parent's decision about curfew, and they ran away. Sometimes that does happen, but they may return pretty quickly. 

We are talking about youth on the streets or couch surfing for months at a time, or maybe a year or more. Those reasons look very different and can be domestic violence, child abuse, or substance abuse.

Sometimes poverty pushes a child out. Families are living doubled up or tripled up. As kids get older, they are told they are old enough to fend for themselves. "You've got a job. Good luck!" They still attend school every day, which is how I find them.

My learning curve was very steep and very hard. Social work gives you many tools to think about problem-solving and funding solutions. I used my tools and started working here in Waco, and we have created some pretty interesting solutions.

Ben: Absolutely. We will get to those solutions here shortly. What are some of the most common misconceptions or assumptions people have about homeless youth?

Cheryl: I think most people automatically assume that school is not essential to these children, and it is. They are often transient because transportation is a big issue for them. Most youth want to be in school and finish. Quitting school is not a decision that is lightly made. The data for the youth who do not have high school diplomas is very concerning.

When we automatically assume that school is not essential to them and do not include them in the conversation, we are undercutting them and creating a challenging future for them. Even if it is not our intention, the impact is still felt.  

Ben: Yes. We have had some other conversations about the prevalence of homelessness among youth populations. Even though I worked in child protective services and juvenile justice, I did not grasp or understand the prevalence of homeless youth in all our communities. We hear a lot of different competing numbers. Can you tell us a bit more about the data side of this issue? 

Cheryl: I will give you the data I use most in my research through Chapin Hall. Their data collection is through the federal government. It often also encompasses the various definitions of homelessness.

These are scary numbers, but I will just read them off. Homeless youth had a 346% higher risk than their peers of not completing high school. It is so difficult to finish school when you are homeless.

Another is that youth reporting a household income of less than $24,000 yearly had a 162% higher risk of reporting homelessness.

Hispanic and non-white youth had a 33% higher risk of reporting homelessness than white youth. The numbers are even worse for our youth who are minorities and LGBTQ, and LGBT youth had a 120% higher risk of reporting homelessness. We know that family rejection is a big part of that, which is tragic, heartbreaking, and traumatic for the youth. This is our world, and we must pay attention and ask the right questions. They are very vulnerable. African American youth had an 83% higher risk of reporting homelessness.

The last data I can offer is that unmarried parenting youth have a 200% higher risk of reporting homelessness. These youth are vulnerable, to begin with, but then you add that layer of homelessness, and it is a whole different set of problems and concerns.

Ben: Many of these populations are already at risk and two and three times more likely to experience homelessness as a youth. It is eye-opening to think about all the different struggles these young people are living through while trying to finish high school, which we know is a difficult time for all of us and our development. In your experience, what are some of those challenges that you have seen in youth experiencing homelessness?

Cheryl: Most homeless youth report feeling unsafe at least half the time. Sometimes they can find space to welcome them, even temporarily, but they feel safe there. Finding a safe place to land is a big challenge. The data shows that homeless youth experience higher rates of bullying and being trafficked, which is a far greater demon to battle than most of us want to admit. Social workers need to understand how to recognize human trafficking, sometimes referred to by youth as survival sex. However, please make no mistake; it is human trafficking.

Ben: Definitely. A disconnection from the educational setting where people have daily contact with them can compound those dangerous situations. Many people may find it surprising that education can play a significant role in positive outcomes for homeless youth, keeping them connected and providing safety in an age-appropriate way. When you were working as a homeless liaison for Waco Independent School District, can you tell us a little about McKinney-Vento's law and how youth are eligible?

Cheryl: Sure. McKinney-Vento is federal legislation that officially became a mandate for public and charter schools in the United States in 1987. It has been around for a while and covers the time I was in my social work training. Sadly, I never heard of it until 2009, when I started at Waco ISD. We have to change our social work education to do a better job of helping social workers understand what McKinney-Vento is because it is a policy issue. McKinney-Vento requires that every school district in the United States has someone appointed to identify the youth who are homeless or are being fostered.

There are given some entitlements because of that designation. Only the homeless liaison can "code" a student as homeless. No one else can go into the computer and change it, and sometimes school administration would not agree with my decision to identify someone as homeless. The federal terminology is very clear. McKinney-Vento includes students who lack a fixed, adequate, and regular residence. I like to use the acronym FAR, which stands for fixed, adequate, and regular. If they are living in someone's camper, that is not fixed. It is on wheels, moves, and, most of the time, is not meant for long-term human habitation. Other examples include homeless shelters, transitional housing, or on the street. If they are living apart from their parents, that is considered unaccompanied and homeless. Many of our youth live with people that do not have legal guardianship or custody and may not have seen their biological parents in years; they have to be coded as homeless within the school district.

Part of my job as a liaison was to assess students' status and figure out how to help them. Many attorneys in this area would gladly support families who want to work on that for pro bono or low cost, depending on their financial situation. It is in the child's best interest to have an appointed guardian if they are unaccompanied, but that is not always possible or safe. You need to do your homework and ask the right questions to assess what is happening.

There are a few more things with McKinney-Vento legislation. It provides complimentary breakfast and lunch every day for the student and also provides school supplies, uniforms, and other equipment and fees if they are in marching band or sports. Additionally, transportation to and from school is covered to keep them in their school of origin. Every time a student changes schools and bounces around, usually due to homelessness, they fall behind six months or so academically. To keep them in their school of origin, you may have to have buses meet halfway across county lines to maintain the child's stability, as it is best.

The sad thing about McKinney-Vento is it is an unfunded mandate. The government is good at telling school districts and social workers what to do, but they do not give us a lot of money to work with to make all those things happen. These services are not cheap, especially transportation. We applied for some grant funding, but those are competitive funds. I feel like we should not be competing for funding around these kinds of needs as they should just be provided.

Ben: I appreciate that because I know that many people have probably never heard of McKinney-Vento, but parents, community members, and especially social workers need to know that this exists. Before having these conversations with you, I did not realize that it was a mandate that every school district had to have a homeless liaison. It is vital for all of us.

Cheryl: With our high school seniors, it is crucial that the counselors also understand how things work because they have to do a FAFSA, which will ask for the students' parents' financial information. As a social worker, I had to educate the school counselors to help them understand that the student can still attend school, as there are ways to answer the FAFSA questions so that they can still get the funding they need to go to school.

Ben: Absolutely. I hope you can help clarify some of these definitions for us. I know that in my area, we currently have many families displaced because of wildfires, flooding, and other natural disasters. We also have a significant immigrant community that moves around to different places. Could you tell us about the various definitions of homelessness? 

Cheryl: It is tricky. For McKinney-Vento, that is a Department of Education definition. It is a federal definition, but it applies to school-aged youth, for the most part. Many school districts also have preschools within them, so they start as young as three. When I was in the school district, I coded three-year-olds, four-year-olds, and five-year-olds, but it was still within the Department of Education.

The other definition we must consider with this population is the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA). This act defines youth experiencing homelessness as individuals not more than 21 years of age. It exceeds what school districts consider school age and those with no other safe, alternative living arrangements. This definition includes only those youth who are unaccompanied by families or caregivers.

The other definition is the HUD definition, which tells the federal government how many kids are homeless at any point in time during the year. HUD uses four categories, and a few that I disagreed with when I was a homeless liaison. I will tell you why in a minute. The first are individuals and families who lack fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residences. It is a subset for individuals who resides in an emergency shelter, a place not meant for human habitation, or those living in an institution temporarily. They do not own the place. The next category is individuals and families who will imminently lose their primary nighttime residence, so they are considered homeless already. This category can be helpful for a homeless liaison because we can go after HUD funding to find resources. The next category is unaccompanied youth and families with children and youth who are homeless under federal statutes and do not otherwise qualify as homeless under this definition. The last category is individuals and families fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Kids living in domestic violence shelters are also included.

Those are the three main ones: HUD, RHYA, and McKinney-Vento. HUD provides point-in-time data, RHYA is different age-wise, and then McKinney-Vento has some key provisions built within it that are not mentioned in any other definitions.

Ben: These are the different definitions of what constitutes homelessness. I think it is more apparent when we realize that there are many ways that a young person could struggle with housing insecurities, either on their own or with the entire family.

This morning, a conversation I was having with students in one of my classes involved the many different places where we find social workers. At face value, we may think that this is a conversation to have with school social workers. However, you mentioned the possibility of working with families fleeing domestic violence. Social workers working in that environment must know that these children could qualify under McKinney-Vento. Additionally, this information could be pertinent for social workers working with immigrant populations, in crisis response to natural disasters, helping displaced families, and in child welfare. We, as social work professionals, can support these homeless youth.

What are some ways these social workers can work to support homeless youth?

Cheryl: One way is to learn the numbers. The Department of Education shows over 1.3 million homeless youth in the United States. That number has not gone up or down significantly in the last five or six years. I keep seeing the ballpark of that number. There are many avenues where medical social workers and other professionals intersect with these families. Ask the right questions to ensure they are getting services through McKinney-Vento if they are school-aged and aware of their entitlements. If they do not know them, help them understand how to access them. You can also connect them with their homeless liaison at their local school district. 

Ben: I want to pause for a moment to think about ethics. We should all be well-versed in the NASW code of ethics, as they play a significant role in our social work practice across all settings. What are examples of ethical dilemmas that have come up in your work with homeless youth, and how do you approach these?

Cheryl: I think the biggest lesson I have learned is that to do this work ethically, you have to include the voices of the youth. Not including the voice of your client is very disrespectful. Many times if a child is unaccompanied, we do not ask them how we can help and instead impose what we want on them. I see this often in meetings.

Even with my work at The Cove, accessing mental health or medical care is tricky if a child is underage without the consent of their parent. Every state has different rules. You have to do your homework and know your state's laws. We have a doctor who comes to The Cove and works with our youth. Thankfully, he understands Texas law very well. He knows where his boundaries are with what kinds of medication he can give without parental consent. Even with mental health, we understand what can be done for the youth before we need parental or guardian consent.

Ethically, you must stay on your toes and be aware of what the laws say. You do not want to risk losing your license or putting the client in harm's way, but you want them to get the resource. How do we make that happen ethically? One of the grand challenges of social work is homelessness, and many ethics are involved with that.

Ben: You mentioned encouraging the voice of homeless youth in guiding their processes. I wonder if you might give us an example of what homeless youth are saying they need.

Cheryl: I will use The Cove as the example because I do not think school districts have a lot of latitude with some of that. Often, the administration calls the shots. I will stick with more of what this can look like in the nonprofit sector or other partner organizations that serve youth. In The Cove, formerly homeless youth are on the board, and their vote counts the same as mine. They may have received services three years ago, and now they are sitting across the table with the rest of the lawyers, social workers, and business people on the board. They are valued as deeply as anyone else sitting in that room. Youth are also included in the program committee because that is where we talk about what services will look like and how they will be delivered.

While I have an idea of what it might look like, the youth will surprise you almost every time and give you something even better. You are selling yourself short if you do not include the voice of the youth. I cannot emphasize this enough. A youth's self-esteem is built when they are welcomed into the conversation about their treatment or progress. It also builds trust when you include them, and they know that you will not spring something on them. Finally, they take pride when something programmatically starts to happen that was their idea. For example, we brought a fitness program to The Cove because our kids wanted to be physically healthy.

Ben: Thank you. Now, I think it is natural to transition our conversation a little bit because you mentioned The Cove. I want our listeners to learn a little bit more about this program. You were one of the main driving forces that started this nonprofit in Waco, Texas. Can you tell us what that was like and more details about the program? 

Cheryl: The Cove is an afterschool program that is open from eight to eight because we serve graduates of The Cove, or "Cove scholars." After they finish high school, they can come back and receive support and services. From four to eight o'clock at night, the school bus drops youth off at the door, and they get an array of services like computers and internet access. They can meet with a mentor or tutor, get a haircut, see the doctor, or see a therapist. They can also sleep if they have been working since early morning. We can accommodate whatever they need.

We also provide substance abuse services if they desire, but being free of substances is not a requirement at The Cove. We do not want them to use or deal substances while they are there, but honestly, if a student comes in and they are high, The Cove is the safest place for them to land for a bit. I cannot imagine turning them out to the street in that condition.

When I started working with this population in Waco, I remember talking to our city council members about the numbers in our school district. They were shocked and did not believe me. They said, "We don't have homeless youth in Waco. However, this was not true, as we had about 335 unaccompanied youth between two high schools in Waco at that time. These are not things you see on "Fixer Upper" while watching HGTV. Waco looks like a fantastic place, but there is homelessness and poverty. I started with educating from the top down to get funding because our city budget paid for only one of our staff salaries when we opened.

Since then, we have become self-sustaining through grants and fundraising. Even with COVID, we have thrived financially. It takes a lot to help people understand what homelessness looks like for kids. There were many challenges with starting The Cove as a nonprofit, especially the business end of it. That is not my forte. I had to find qualified people with passion that matched mine to partner with me. Those people came alongside me quickly, and so it worked. We were able to work magic in a way that I could have never imagined. I am keenly aware that this was the efforts of a tribe of people who supported and encouraged our youth.

Ben: Thank you for that. I specifically had you on the podcast to raise awareness of homeless youth. The more people we can get involved with and understand the prevalence of this problem, the more people we can get to support these efforts. Thanks for sharing your experience about mobilizing people and raising money, as it is not easy. Many times nonprofits have that multi-pronged approach and have support from the city governments or school districts. Did this happen in your case? Did you also have private donors who were willing to support these efforts? Nonprofits often use different approaches to try and find support for these types of programs.

Cheryl: Yeah, very much so. I feel like I was on the preaching circuit before we even opened. It was an idea, and we did not know what it would be called or what was involved. It was just a dream I had. I went to many churches in Waco and gave my little speech, but it worked because I gained volunteers, donors, and employees from these informational sessions. So it was worth all of that time. It was a labor of love, but it took excessive time and effort. You have to hang in there.

Would I have done it if I knew how hard it would be? It is probably better that I just learned as I went. I had no idea what I was doing, so I kept moving. It was like Dory, the fish; I kept swimming, and we got where we needed to be.

Ben: I love that. I think it is sometimes better if we do not know all the challenges ahead because I do not know if we would walk up that hill. We face challenges one at a time by being passionate and persistent. How are things going for The Cove today?

Cheryl: We are doing great. We had 19 youth graduate last May and August. Our graduation rates with homeless youth are higher than the non-homeless graduation rates in Waco ISD. We have now expanded to serve five different school districts surrounding Waco ISD. We started serving one school district, but other districts kept approaching us, saying they had youth who needed services. We moved to a larger location and now serve five different school districts in this area. It is growing, and we see its benefits.

One example is a 19-year-old who came in around November. He had been off the radar since COVID, and we had no idea where he went. This young man was still coded as a freshman at 19, but because of how The Cove can operate after school hours and with online working, he could get caught up. He showed up daily and worked from when he walked in until he left. He graduated in May with his class with a regular high school diploma. I would say this is highly unusual, but it is doable. It was inspirational to his peers. He motivated everybody else to get busy and take things a little bit more seriously. Peers have a beautiful relationship in the program and support one another.

Ben: That is an incredible story of resilience and shows that when we can bring in the right supports for people, amazing things can happen. You mentioned COVID and how youth can access the internet at The Cove. We know this was an incredible barrier for many young people during COVID because they did not have access to technology to do online schooling if their school district had to go all online. There were other difficulties during this time, like social isolation. I imagine this was a significant hardship for a lot of homeless youth. How did The Cove approach that?

Cheryl: We pivoted so many times. We would have a plan, and then something would change. When things shut down, we did not know where the youth went, where they were staying, or if they were okay. We eventually found them within a month or two. At first, they were taken back in by family members or friends, but then the longer things went on, those arrangements were not sustainable, and they returned to the street.

We ended up putting them in hotel rooms. They cannot sign for themselves to get into a hotel, and it was an expense that our budget was not expecting. Some local, generous people helped pay hotel bills for our youth during that time. Many churches fixed plates of food because you cannot cook or grocery shop while staying in a hotel. They did not have money or a car, and public transportation was not running. There were many barriers, but we figured out what we needed to do. We were very successful with finding safe places for them to go. I wish every kid had a warm house like mine with access to the internet, a pantry full of food, and a loving adult who cared about how they were functioning. However, we did deliver laptops to them provided by the school district, and there was free wifi through the hotel. Tutors and social workers did home visits at the hotels and cared for those youth, including taking them hot food and sometimes cold. Once they were spoiled with hot dinners, they always wanted hot food. They handled the situation better than you can imagine. The resilience in this population is profound. They would laugh when the rest of us were stressed out and crying. They could find humor in situations and turn my day around.

Ben: How did you find the homeless youth, especially when everyone switched to online learning?

Cheryl: It was a snowball effect. You find one, and they would have connections to another. Eventually, we found everyone. We had contact numbers, but these youth often have burner phones or phones that run out of minutes very quickly. It can be hard to call or text them. Some reached out to us. They knew The Cove had support, so they would call when they were in trouble. Some waited for us to find them.

Ben: That is amazing. You are right. The best way to get a hold of a teen is to get a hold of their friends. If you had to identify the single most difficult part of navigating COVID-related challenges, what would you say that was?

Cheryl: The social isolation because their mental health is already vulnerable. Our youth struggled during this time and needed some extra support. They needed to be around people like many of us do. I was fortunate to be cooped up in my house with three dogs, two cats, a spouse, two children, and neighbors that we could yell to across the fence. These kids were alone in the darkest way. Predators became a big problem during this time because the minute everything went online, so did the predators. Youth were being contacted by traffickers and dealers. I felt like we were constantly trying to stay a step ahead of the next big disaster waiting to happen.

Ben: Like you, I had family and other social supports, but social isolation was even a difficult time for my mental health and well-being. How did you support young people through that difficult time of social isolation?

Cheryl: We checked on them every day and sometimes twice a day. We would drop off breakfast and lunch in the morning and then a hot dinner later. Tutors and mentors were checking regularly and ensuring their phones had enough minutes, so if they needed to talk or call someone, they could do that. We educated them about the internet and how not to trust everyone on there. We encouraged them to reach out to us before interacting with anyone and take screenshots. It took some deep commitment and creative thinking around how to safely support them because we were masked.

Another challenge was with vaccinations. We had to figure out how to get permission for those since they were minors. When starting a nonprofit to serve homeless youth, you do not think about a pandemic strategic plan, but we have one now. 

The hardest part was when a child was sick or positive for COVID. They needed to be with a loved one who could care for them properly. We partnered with Waco Health, our community health partnership, and they would send folks out to check on our youth. If they tested positive, they educated them on mask use.

We learned as we went. If you go onto some federal websites, one of the key topics is surviving COVID with youth. We are still trying to figure out how to do this with some restrictions still in place. Our numbers went up recently here in Waco, and we are back to a mask mandate in The Cove as our community numbers are so high. 

Constant evaluation and assessment are what we have learned from this experience and how that helps us to move forward. We also realized that school is much more than the educational component. For example, for young people struggling with food insecurity, this was a genuine concern when they did have that access to breakfast and lunch every day. They also did not get a typical adolescent development experience of being around their peers.

Ben: I know that you have varied experience, both clinical and macro community practice experience. In what ways did both of those aspects of your professional social work practice benefit you when starting this nonprofit? Was your social work experience helpful in that process?

Cheryl: Yes, no doubt. The most beneficial thing we use in The Cove is a trauma-informed model. It has been a few years since I completed my social work master's degree, but we did not use trauma-informed care then, as it came much later. Now, I cannot imagine functioning without it. I believe I was an effective social worker, but once trauma-informed care gets embedded, you begin to realize how critical it is to stick to that model when working with vulnerable youth. They have many layers of trauma, loss, grief, rejection, challenges, and vulnerabilities that were magnified a million times by the pandemic. That is probably the most valuable tool I had because it gave me the language I needed to explain it to donors. Using the language of a trauma model helps folks understand that the intervention we can offer at this age will help them thrive as adults.

If you want healthy adults, you have to address unhealthy youth. Youth carry heavy loads, and trauma creates medical and mental health vulnerabilities. If I was talking to the Waco Family Health Center or community donors, I spoke of the trauma model, which worked on every level. I also used my clinical experience of mental health and how to connect with folks. Building trust, finding value in them, and treating them with respect and dignity are essential. Sadly, they are not used to that sometimes. A core belief at The Cove is that everyone is valuable and deserves to be treated with dignity.

Ben: I love it. This speaks to the idea that there is a place for all of us as social workers to support homeless youth, whether we are micro-direct practice social workers or more macro-oriented community-focused social workers. Is there anything else before we close today that you would like to say to our listeners? How can social workers in every area help to end youth homelessness?

Cheryl: We have training that helps us on a macro level down to a micro level. Most professions do not have that scope of training at their fingertips, so I believe we are the best equipped to begin addressing this. We can do that with advocacy, researching laws, speaking up, and staying engaged with policy. What does that look like at a national level versus a state level? It took a while for me to help our school districts understand that federal law trumps state law. State law said they had to have certain records and documents, and McKinney-Vento says they do not and have 30 days. The homeless liaison can assist with that.

Social workers know how to get birth certificates, shot records, replacement social security cards, and anything else that gets lost as they couch surf. And then when you get down to the nitty-gritty of the micro piece, the mental health aspect and dealing with the trauma of being trafficked, the LGBTQ population is super vulnerable. We must create specialized spaces and services, help them feel welcome with pronouns and bathrooms that are non-gender, and provide access to doctors that will understand their needs. 

Ben: Absolutely. If anyone wants to learn more about youth homelessness or programs like The Cove, where can they go?

Cheryl: For The Cove, you can go to thecovewaco.org. My email is my name, cheryl_pooler@baylor.edu. Other organizations online I would recommend would be NAEHCY, the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, and SchoolHouse Connection, which is a great resource to get resources for homeless youth. Chapin Hall is housed at the University of Chicago, but they have a ton of data, resources, and good information on their website. There are many great places out there.

Ben: Definitely. There are many avenues to pursue. I hope that this conversation has helped to bring light to social workers the plight of youth who are homeless and experiencing housing insecurities. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Pooler. We appreciate you sharing your experience and passion for working with these young people. We wish you and The Cove well in continuing to provide outstanding service for the youth in your community. 

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