This brief highlights several of the most pressing challenges in addressing the needs of families who are experiencing homelessness and presents a set of strong policy recommendations for assessment, intervention, research, and service delivery related to homeless children and their parents. Chapters increase awareness of the mental health, educational, and developmental challenges faced by these children and their parents. In addition, chapters provide practice implications of current research with a focus on the importance of careful assessment of service and housing needs; individual differences in strengths and adjustment of parents and children experiencing homelessness; and innovative treatment and service delivery approaches to address the unique needs of this population.
Featured topics include:

• Promoting positive parenting among homeless families.

• Innovative intervention, assessment, and service delivery models.

• Homeless children and early childhood care and education systems.

• Early Risers intervention & Community Action Targeting Children who are Homeless Project (Project CATCH). Child and Family Well-Being and Homelessness is an essential resource for policy makers and related professionals and for graduate students and researchers in developmental, clinical, and school psychology; child, youth and family policy; public health; and social work.

Examines mental health, educational, and developmental challenges of homeless families Explores assessment of functioning across domains and time Describes how to leverage individual strengths of parents and children Discusses innovative service delivery approaches to address the unique needs of this population Highlights the most critical challenges in addressing the needs of families who are experiencing homelessness

Autorentext
Mary E. Haskett, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at North Carolina State University, where her research focuses on factors that shape parenting, the influences of parenting on children's social-emotional development, adjustment of children with a history of maltreatment, and understanding approaches to support parents and children experiencing homelessness. She and her graduate students currently conduct research on interventions to promote positive parenting among parents residing in emergency shelters and transitional housing. Dr. Haskett co-edited (with S. Perlman and B.A. Cowan) a leading text on family homelessness, Supporting Families Experiencing Homelessness: Current Practices and Future Directions (Springer, 2014). She received the 2016 National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, Dr. Staci Perlman Achievements in Research Award.

Inhalt
Chapter 1. Understanding and Meeting the Needs of Families Experiencing Homelessness.- Chapter 2. Mental Health and Adaptation of Children Experiencing Family Homelessness.- Chapter 3. Observed Parenting in Families Exposed to Homelessness: Child and Parent Characteristics as Predictors of Response to the Early Risers Intervention.- Chapter 4. Assessment of Families Experiencing Homelessness: Analysis of Current Practice.- Chapter 5. Access to Early Childhood Services for Young Children Experiencing Homelessness.- Chapter 6. Interagency Collaboration to Promote Mental Health and Development of Children Experiencing Homelessness.- Chapter 7. A Safe, Stable Place to Call Home: Policy Implications and Next Steps to Address Family Homelessness.