How can a liaison identify and locate homeless children?
A liaison can use several strategies to identify and locate homeless children. First, the liaison can do outreach to local homeless and domestic violence providers who have already identified homeless children and youth. It’s important to realize that even if a community does not have a homeless shelter, they may have social service providers that supply alternate housing for homeless families. Also, keeping a listing of all low-cost local hotels and motels in the area near the registration desk can allow secretaries to verify that the address is a local hotel (indicating that the family may be homeless) without having to ask the family. Examining transportation logs is a good way to find doubled-up families. Liaisons can also do a teacher survey, or can submit a housing questionnaire to all students (so as not to single out homeless students). Professional development can also be very important in helping teachers recognize statements from students that may indicate that the students
