Thrownaways Rights

The Covenant House is a national organization founded in 1972, whose mission is to help homeless youth escape the streets. The Covenant House has locations scattered across America where they offer a wide range of services and outreach programs.

“Homeless kids have rights. They have the right to a home ... the right to food ... the right to guidance and an education … the right to be free from sexual, emotional, or physical abuse ... and the right to be free from exploitation. These kids have the right to be safe and – most important – to be loved.”

Strategic plans

• Programs require more intentional reinforcement of connections to key adults and assistance to youth in forming new meaningful connections with helpful, positive and pro-social adults. There is a need to create environments in which helpful, positive and prosocial adults can be encouraged to offer support to teens and young adults.  
  
  
• Increased community awareness is needed so more communitymembers can provide support to high risk youth in their communities.
  
  
• Development and implementation of methods to use electronic media and social networking to reach youth and provide them with information on where to find support and how to keep in touch with program staff is a critical next step.

Edited and Written by: Karla Romero

Source

• http://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1037&context=childrenatrisk
• https://www.covenanthouse.org/homeless-teen-issues/teen-homelessness

Thrownaways

A child is asked or told to leave home by a parent or other household adult, no adequate alternative care is arranged for the child by a household adult, and the child is out of the house-hold overnight.

The children leave because they are no longer wanted in the home.

Some of these reasons are:

• Years of physical and sexual abuse.
• Strained relationships.
• Intense family conflict.
• Addiction of a family member.
• Parental neglect.
• Disruptive family conditions.

The children are not literally missing because their caretakers are not concerned about their whereabouts. Although these caretakers may not know where the youth are, they are not looking for them, are not alarmed, and might well be able to locate the youth easily if they decided to look for them.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in one study, more than half of the youth interviewed during shelter stays reported that their parents either told them to leave or knew they were leaving and did not care.

Edited and Written by: Lady Verdezoto

Source:

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/youth.html

Why kids runaway?

Many kids run away because of drug and alcohol abuse. When teens and pre-teens get involved in substance abuse, they may leave home to hide it so their parents don’t find out. These kids are often using a lot more than their parents know; they want to use more freely and openly, so they run away.

The main reason why kids run away is because they don’t have good problem-solving skills. Running away is an “either/or” kind of solution; it’s a product of black-and-white thinking. Kids run away because they don’t want to face something, and that includes emotions they don’t want to deal with. The adolescent who runs away has run out of problem-solving skills. And leaving home—along with everything that is overwhelming them—seems to solve their immediate problems.

A Step-by-Step Way to Teach Your Kids that Running Away Won’t Solve Their Problems

Runaway and Thrownaway, my or their decision?

Nowadays, homeless rates of runaways and thrownaways are increasing beacause of some problems that are shown in the society, specially at home. Running away home is the decision that any person takes due to some facts, leaving home is the result. Being thrown away is the result of some facts that made someone else take the decision of kicking out someone else. This problem is higher in kids and teenagers.

Reasons to runaway:

• Victimization and neglect
• Drugs and alcohol
• Crime and Homelessness

Keeping Kids Safe

Providing substance abuse treatment and parenting classes may keep a child safe.  At-risk youth require intervention to keep them from the downward spiral of homelessness, substance abuse, criminal behavior and mental health problems.  For the sake of our youth, society should focus on preventing problems, rather than waiting to fix them.

Edited and written by: Héctor Triviño
Source:
http://www.decodedscience.org/runaway-children-predictors-preventions/44560