RESEARCH PROPOSAL- LGBTQ+ AND HOMELESSNESS 10
Research Proposal- LGBTQ+ and Homelessness
Najier Johnson
Professor Heath
SWK 361
11/14/21
Introduction/Overview
Homelessness is a detrimental experience, that harms a person’s mental and physical health, appropriate functioning, life trajectory, human development, and overall well-being (Bramley et al., 2018). In such a situation, runaways and other homeless adolescents are at a high risk of experiencing various negative effects. As a result, according to current research and data from many small samples suggest, LGBTQ+ youth constitute a bulk of the homeless population in the United States compared to the non-queer proportion of homeless people.
According to Homelessness & Housing (2020) estimates, around 1.6 million teenagers aged 12 to 17 years run away from home each year. Although research on this demographic is limited, it is estimated that between 20% and 40% of these runaways, homeless youths are members of the LGBTQ+ community. As a result, Homelessness & Housing (2020) reported that LGBTQ+ people of color—African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans—make up a sizable share of LGBTQ+ runaways each year compared to White LGBTQ+ homeless youth.
There are a variety of reasons why LGBTQ+ youth suffer homelessness at significantly higher rates than youth that do not identify as LGBTQ+. The four top causes of the high instances of homeless LGBTQ+ youth include rejection by family & friends based on their sexual orientation and identity, physical, sexual & emotional abuse within their environments, growing out of the foster care system, and emotional and financial neglect from family and guardians (Homeless & Street 2017). These reasons and statistics indicate there are numerous LGBTQ+ youths that find themselves in the streets every year. Perhaps dealing with mental health and psycho-emotional disorders due to trauma, lack of acceptance, and neglect from those closest to them, without any form of necessary support. To advance understanding, more research on suitable social work treatments for these vulnerable populations is required, as is proactive government policy to guarantee that individuals of this vulnerable demographic receive the necessary assistance.
Literature Review
Fraser et al. (2019) conducted a literature study to highlight research trends in homelessness pertaining to LGBTQ+ youth as part of proactive social work expertise. The author acknowledges that there isn’t enough study on the connection of homelessness and LGBTQ+ adolescents – the topic is an understudied area of homelessness and housing studies. The article reveals this under-exploration poses significant challenges to advancing social work since it shows stunted efforts to deal with one of the most prevalent challenges facing America in terms of housing. The writers feel dissatisfied with the current situation, because an estimated 20% -40% of all homeless persons identify as LGBTQ+. It faults existing researchers for failing to develop adequate strategies for solving an issue that affects a vulnerable segment of society. It analyzes the common themes that support this status quo, such as a lack of public understanding and political goodwill on the matter, influenced by social paradigms that are frequently non-accepting and discriminatory against LGBTQ+ people. Fraser et al. (2019) suggest this lack of societal initiative should be tackled with a combination of public awareness initiatives and supportive policy-backed programs that identify and support runaway, homeless LGBTQ+.
McCann and Brown (2019) conduct a comprehensive evaluation of existing research on LGBTQ+ issues and homelessness, focusing on examining homelessness among LGBTQ+ adolescents to provide research proposals on their inherent care and support needs. The paper agrees with Fraser et al. (2019). It finds that LGBTQ+ youth encounter a slew of societal and healthcare challenges that have a major impact on their health and well-being, aggravated by homelessness. The findings of 319 studies published between August 2008 and 2018 were evaluated to uncover themes and patterns among LGBTQ+ youth facing homelessness. The research featured look on the homeless experiences of LGBTQ+ young people aged 13 to 24. The study found that homelessness among LGBTQ+ people is a critical public health issue understudied and under-researched by relevant scholars. According to the review, four themes contributing to LGBTQ+ adolescent homelessness include mental health concerns and drug misuse, sexual hazards and vulnerability, prejudice and isolation by family and friends, and inadequate interventions and support for LGBTQ+ youth (McCann & Brown, 2019).
Other studies (metanalysis) are restricted in their giving since they do not validate many hypotheses and are not based on experience. Rhoades et al. (2018) is an empirical study that exclusively investigates the impact of homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth on their mental health, more so suicidality. The research utilized data obtained from LGBTQ+ youth throughout the US that contacted a suicide crisis service organization. The main objective of the study was to investigate the association between homelessness & frequent crisis service users. Furthermore, it would look at the apparent link between disclosing one’s LGBTQ+ identity to friends and family and rejection and neglect, which eventually leads to homelessness, as well as the research-based link between unfavorable mental health behavior outcomes and homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth.
According to the empirical study, over one-third of all LGBTQ+ individuals who contacted the suicide hotline had been homeless at some point in their lives. Homelessness was also associated with LGBTQ youth that disclosed their sexuality to friends & family and reported more severe mental health symptoms that led to suicidality. The research suggests the need for more proactive and inclusive approaches to dealing with homelessness related to LGBTQ+ youth through social and public health programs.
Robinson (2020) builds on the findings from Rhoades et al. (2018) by identifying policy inefficiencies that enhance homelessness and its negative effects on LGBTQ+ youth. Robinson (2020) describes hyper-incarceration and policing as systemic processes that maintain poverty and racial inequality as a type of legal discrimination. LGBTQ+ youth face similar manifestations of systematic and institutional prejudice. Robinson (2020) goes ahead to state how this perceived lack of attention to this systemic discrimination leads to worse healthcare outcomes among LGBTQ+ youth, more so if it involves homeless LGBTQ+ youth. The study used data collected from 40 in-depth interviews involving LGBTQ+ youth that have experienced homelessness and their interactions with the police.
Powell et al. (2016) explored a possible solution for the challenges of homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth. The research investigated the efficacy of the My Treatment Empowerment for Adolescents on the Move (iTEAM) project, which used an affirming system-of-care approach. This system of care strategy is designed to give essential assistance to homeless LGBTQ+ youth, including drug addiction treatment, intense case management, and other types of mental health therapy. The objectives of the iTEAM program included reducing substance abuse among homeless LGBTQ+ youth and improving their mental health. The program also hoped to improve their long-term well-being by improving their life skills, increasing housing access & stability, and increasing LGBTQ+ youth’s linkage to related services. According to evidence from the self-reporting system and analysis tools used during the implementation phase of the initiative.
Literature Summary
Data collected from Youth.gov (Homelessness & Housing | youth.gov, 2020) reveals homelessness among LGBTQ youth is a serious and under-explored public health concern. Fraser et al. (2019), McCann & Brown (2019), Rhoades et al. (2018) and Robinson, (2020) agree that LGBTQ youth are at a higher risk of homelessness and a host of mental and physical health issues because of the societal perceptions and opinions on their sexual identity. The increased risk of homelessness and the associated physical & mental health risks that stems from this situation is a testament stem from stigma & rejection from families & friends, sexual abuse & vulnerability, substance abuse, and lack of appropriate support programs for members of this vulnerable population. They fault government agencies for lack of goodwill for LGBTQ and systemic discrimination against homeless LGBTQ youth for the reported failures in addressing these problems. Powell et al. (2016) are a testament to the effectiveness of public health and social programs directed to this vulnerable population. Such programs, created through government initiatives, would go a long way in improving the health outcomes and well-being of LGBTQ youth.
Research Question
According to the studies listed above, legislation, social work, and public health initiatives will be possible solutions to homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth. Given this possibility, this study will address the following research question: Would national and/or state-level implementation of programs like iTEAM described by Powell et al. (2016) be as effective in reducing the mental and physical health risks of vulnerable LGBTQ+ youth?
Theoretical Framework
The study topic shall be based on evidence from a program for LGBTQ+ youth that will employ Behavioral and Social Learning Theory concepts. According to the beliefs, human conduct is essentially shaped by interactions with the environment (Abbassi & Aslinia, 2010). The proposed intervention will aim at transforming the residential environment of vulnerable and homeless LGBTQ+ youth from a stressful and damaging environment to a more accommodating, accepting, and supportive environment through structured/ meaningful interactions between members of these demographic and social workers (Abbassi & Aslinia, 2010). The social workers and the structured, policy-based programs will identify the mental and physical health needs of vulnerable LGBTQ youth through the structured use of mental health assessment tools and physician support.
Hypothesis
The development and implementation of policy-sanctioned social work and targeted public health program such as therapy sessions that will offer physical & mental health support to homeless LGBTQ+ youth in shelters throughout the city will translate to better short-term and long-term health outcomes of the vulnerable population, mitigating this silent public health crisis.
Part II. Methodology
Study Design
In terms of methodology, we will first start by conducting literature searches on the internet. The researchers will adopt content analysis as the research design in this study. These searches will be performed using online libraries such as Google Scholar, MedLine, ScienceDirect, ProQuest, Scopus, and PubMed. Four distinct search runs we will run periodically. The hunts we ran on October 8, 2021, and again on November 9, 2021. “LGBT Homelessness,” “Queer Homelessness,” “LGBT Housing First,” and “Queer Housing First” were among them. Searches that included “Housing First” added some extra results, whereas the majority of the results from searches included “homelessness” as a key phrase. It shall be agreed to use LGBT in the scans rather than LGBTIQ+ since LGBT will be more widely used abbreviation and hence more likely to generate results.
Population & Sample
The quests shall return over 100 articles with applicable catchphrases. The article abstracts will be assessed for importance, which will be controlled by the inclusion of LGBTIQ+ character and vagrancy; a sum of 26 articles will be utilized in this audit. Twenty-five extra articles will be found utilizing their reference records. Because of the limited scope of the relevant investigation, it will be decided that articles shall not begin on a certain day. Each piece will be coded for the important themes it addressed, resulting in a “writing map” that allowed for a representation of the most obvious, or key, issues and their predominance (Creswel et al., 2018).
Furthermore, during winter 2021, our examination group plans to conduct calls and visits to around four chosen destinations. Two colleagues will go through a day and a half at every office, leading semi-structured individuals and gathering interviews with five kinds of respondents: (1) leader chiefs; (2) program directors; (3) direct assistance staff, for example, caseworkers; (4) assessment trained professionals or data set heads (in programs with such staff individuals); and (5) delegates of accomplice associations working with the chose organizations to serve LGBTQ youth.
However, our team will not be planning to assemble data from youth getting administrations because of impediments on the number of meetings directed for this review. Likewise, we will request contacts at each site for data on the number from RHY to serve every year and customer socioeconomics, including the extent of youth distinguishing as LGBTQ. At long last, we will have already mentioned duplicates of admission and appraisal structures and archives portraying organization administrations (for example, yearly or assessment reports).
Measurement: Operational Definitions
The focus of this research is finding solutions to prevent homelessness amongst LGBTQ populations. The researchers will narrow down to find out whether national or state-level implementation programs like the iTEAM can effectively reduce the mental and physical health of the vulnerable LGBTQ+ youths. Therefore, the key variables in this research the state-level or national implementation programs as the independent variable and homelessness amongst the vulnerable LGBTQ+ youths as the dependent variable. In this research, LGBTQ+ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Allies, Asexual and Pansexual. This population group has been left neglected and vulnerable, thus explaining why most of them are homeless. The research will compare LGBTQ+ white people and LGBTQ+ people of color—African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans who make up a sizable share of LGBTQ+ and how they compare based on homelessness.
Data Collection and Data Analysis Plan
All these data collections will be estimated to take up to maximum one month. This shall allow time to adequately gather the data and go through it to enhance its quality. Amendments might include redoing the surveys and going through the searches again. In the case of attrition from a sample, some procedures can help mitigate (or completely avoid) data loss. The features of subsequent losses will be known at any time, and they may be compared with those followed upon. If biases will have discovered, appropriate weights can be inserted to compensate, which will be the usual technique of dealing with attrition.
On the other hand, regression shall effectively deal with missing data since it can anticipate the null value based on other information in the dataset. Stochastic regression will be one of numerous regression analysis approaches. Regression algorithms shall locate missing data, but their performance shall be heavily dependent on how well correlated the remaining data is.
Our survey of contextual analysis information will include an arrangement of site visit synopses and group conversations to foster discoveries. After each site visit, specialists will arrange two archives: (1) an underlying update distinguishing comprehensive discoveries and (2) a nitty-gritty rundown of data accumulated on each examination theme and subtopic. As specialists arrange these reports, they shall have analyzed reactions of individual office staff individuals to affirm data or recognize disparate perspectives. The whole exploration group will be expected to check the notices and point-by-point synopses. During organized conversations, the team will zero in on the examination subjects, distinguished fundamental discoveries, and practices inside and across the four locales.
References
Abbassi, A., & Aslinia, S. D. (2010). Family Violence, Trauma and Social Learning Theory. Journal of Professional Counseling: Practice, Theory & Research, 38(1), 16–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/15566382.2010.12033863
Bramley, G., & Fitzpatrick, S. (2018). Homelessness in the UK: who is most at risk?. Housing Studies, 33(1), 96-116.
Creswell J.W., Creswell J.D. Research Design: Qualtitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. SAGE Publications, Ltd.; Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: 2018.
Fraser, B., Pierse, N., Chisholm, E., & Cook, H. (2019). LGBTIQ+ Homelessness: a Review of the Literature. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(15), 2677. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16152677
Homelessness & Housing | youth.gov. (2020). Youth.gov. https://youth.gov/youth-topics/lgbtq-youth/homelessness#_ftn
McCann, E., & Brown, M. (2019). Homelessness among youth who identify as LGBTQ+: A systematic review. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 28(11-12), 2061–2072. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.14818
Powell, C., Ellasante, I., Korchmaros, J. D., Haverly, K., & Stevens, S. (2016). iTEAM: Outcomes of an Affirming System of Care Serving LGBTQ Youth Experiencing Homelessness. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 97(3), 181–190. https://doi.org/10.1606/1044-3894.2016.97.24
Rhoades, H., Rusow, J. A., Bond, D., Lanteigne, A., Fulginiti, A., & Goldbach, J. T. (2018). Homelessness, Mental Health and Suicidality Among LGBTQ Youth Accessing Crisis Services. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 49(4), 643–651. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-018-0780-1
Robinson, B. A. (2020). The Lavender Scare in Homonormative Times: Policing, Hyper-incarceration, and LGBTQ Youth Homelessness. Gender & Society, 34(2), 210–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243220906172
Saewyc, Elizabeth & Mounsey, Brooke & Tourand, Jessica & Brunanski, Dana & Kirk, David & McNeil-Seymour, Jeffrey & Shaughnessy, Kyle & Tsuruda, Samantha & Clark, Natalie. (2017). HOMELESS & STREET-INVOLVED INDIGENOUS LGBTQ2S YOUTH IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: INTERSECTIONALITY, CHALLENGES, RESILIENCE & CUES FOR ACTION.
The post RESEARCH PROPOSAL- LGBTQ+ AND HOMELESSNESS 10 Research Proposal- LGBTQ+ and Homelessness Najier appeared first on PapersSpot.
