Unaccompanied Homeless Youth
HETAC Resources
National Homeless Youth Awareness Month (NHYAM) Toolkit
This HETAC toolkit provides a suite of resources educators and community partners can use to build awareness of the issue of youth homelessness, including its causes and potential solutions, and highlight the need to work to prevent homelessness among children and teens. Resources include a sample board resolution, a calendar of activities, a list of activities for schools/classrooms, a book and movie list, a collection of awareness videos, and social media graphics and messaging.
Navigating Education for Unaccompanied Youth Facing Homelessness (archived webinar)
This February 2025 HETAC webinar explores the unique issues and challenges unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness face daily. Presenters explore the provisions within the McKinney-Vento Act and related federal and state statutes that are tailored to address the specific needs of these students, as well as effective strategies for conducting focused outreach to unaccompanied youth and engaging these youth in supportive services. Presenters also explore "201-level" unaccompanied youth topics, including state guidelines for minor medical consent and "who can sign?" for participation in various types of activities. Attendees also interact via live Q&A and discussion.
This HETAC tip sheet provides basic information about unaccompanied youth, summarizes the key educational and related rights of unaccompanied youth under federal and California law, recommends strategies for supporting unaccompanied youth in school, and links to additional informational and implementation resources. While the tip sheet focuses primarily on educational rights and supports, other topics covered include implementing appropriate practices related to child welfare involvement, missing children and law enforcement, and signatures and consent for minors, while also being mindful of not creating barriers to enrollment and full participation in school.
Other Resources
Alone Without a Home: A National Review of State Laws Affecting Unaccompanied Youth
This report from the National Network for Youth and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty provides summaries, legal citations, and analyses of laws affecting unaccompanied youth in individual U.S. states and territories. The publication covers topics such as youth in need of services; emancipation; status offenses, including running away, truancy, and curfews; the right to contract; definitions and consequences of harboring runaway youth; and service and shelter responsibilities and resources.
Model State Statutes: Youth and Young Adult Homelessness
This resource from the American Bar Association and multiple partner organizations serves as a resource for—and a tribute to—the policymakers, practitioners, and advocates who work tirelessly to improve the lives of youth experiencing homelessness. While each included model statute is not individually endorsed by the American Bar Association, collectively these models represent the national consensus on what is needed at the state level to meet America's obligations to its most vulnerable citizens.
National Center for Homeless Education: Unaccompanied Homeless Youth webpage
This National Center for Homeless Education webpage provides informational and practical resources on supporting unaccompanied homeless youth, including their access to education and other needed services and assistance.
National Strategy to Prevent Youth Homelessness
This framework—developed by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago in partnership with experts with lived experience, McKinney-Vento liaisons and other educators, child welfare experts, service providers, researchers, policymakers, public agency leads, and community leaders—serves as a youth-powered, equity-centered, evidence-informed, cross-systems approach to preventing youth homelessness before it happens. The framework explores what is and isn't working, new and emerging community practices, and the role of the policy context in advancing or inhibiting prevention initiatives.
This toolkit, developed jointly by the American Bar Association and National Network for Youth, provides communities with resources to address challenges related to legal and policy barriers when serving minors experiencing homelessness, including: An overview of key issues and challenges for minors experiencing homelessness; strategies and lessons learned from successful efforts to pass state laws allowing minors to consent to shelter and housing, health care, and other services; questions to consider when drafting minor consent laws; an overview of legal issues and considerations relevant to using host homes for minors; and how advocates can work towards equality while helping minors experiencing homelessness.
State Index on Youth Homelessness
Youth experiencing homelessness face legal and systemic barriers to accessing essential resources and services, but state laws, policies, and systems can provide crucial protections and advantages for a smoother and more secure transition out of homelessness. But all of this requires housing. This 2021 report, developed in partnership by the National Homelessness Law Center and True Colors United, surveys state policies on supporting youth in accessing, affording, and maintaining safe and habitable housing, free from discrimination and with additional supports and resources for young people who want them. It also examines systems that can help prevent, or that can cause, homelessness.
TeenHealthLaw.org, a project of the National Youth Center for Law, provides information on laws impacting adolescent health care access in California. The site is designed to help health care providers and other practitioners understand the laws that impact their work with adolescents. The site’s initial focus is on answering questions related to delivery of sensitive services and care for the subgroups of youth who often face increased barriers to needed care.
Voices of Youth Count: Understanding and Ending Youth Homelessness
Voices of Youth Count is a national initiative spearheaded by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago to bring actionable evidence to efforts to prevent and end youth homelessness. From 2015 through 2017, Chapin Hall conducted the most comprehensive examination to date of youth homelessness, incorporating youth voices to develop achievable solutions. Based on this research, Chapin Hall developed nine topic-focused reports on youth homelessness, including reports focused on the size and characteristics of the youth homeless population, the reasons youth become homeless, the services and strategies youth use to survive, homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth, the role of education partnerships and pathways in addressing youth homelessness, and more.
Sample Materials
California Courts: Caregiver’s Authorization Affidavit
This California Courts webpage provides information about alternatives to guardianship, including through the use of California's Caregiver's Authorization Affidavit and instructions. This affidavit may be used to authorize enrollment of a minor in school and school-related medical care, and must be accepted by schools and medical facilities.
National Runaway Safeline: Education and Outreach Materials
This National Runaway Safeline (NRS) webpage shares NRS education and outreach materials available for downloading or ordering in hard copy. Materials include social media graphics, street outreach cards, NRS brochures, NRS Home Free program brochures, and dealing with stress bookmarks.