Children experiencing homelessness, those in foster care, migratory students, and youth involved in the juvenile legal system face compounded challenges that disrupt their education, health and future opportunities.
The UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools released a report in February, Often Overlooked but Not Unseen: An Overview of Highly Mobile Youth in the U.S., with recommendations calling for improved data collection and support for schools, among other strategies to improve outcomes for these students.
About 2 million children fell into one of the above categories — referred to collectively as highly mobile youth (HMY) in the report — across the country during the 2021–22 school year. Specifically, high mobility refers to “having to frequently move and/or not having a stable place to reside and engage in typical activities such as attending school, developing lasting peer relationships, or forming attachments with caregivers or supportive adults.”
Each subgroup has unique experiences leading to having unique needs. For instance, youth in foster care usually have experienced some form of child maltreatment, including neglect or physical, emotional or sexual abuse. Many unaccompanied migrant youth have faced similar hardship related to maltreatment and/or family separation, but they also often endure significant pre- and in-transit migration traumas and must navigate the complex social service and legal institutions once they arrive.
However, the report notes, HMY also share a number of critical similarities where targeted supports and resources can be beneficial across these subgroups.
“Our findings reveal significant overlap in the characteristics and experiences among HMY subgroups underscoring the need for cross-sector collaboration to identify and serve these youth,” the report states. “Despite all the challenges HMY have to endure, they display resilience in their will and ability to connect with their communities and to overcome. Their potential is too often hindered by systemic barriers — educational instability, limited access to essential resources, and emotional strains of constant change.”
Key findings
The report detailed nine key findings. Among them:
Black and Latino youth, as well as English learners and students with disabilities, are overrepresented among HMY
Black youth comprise 13.8 percent of the U.S. child population but 25 percent of homeless students, 22 percent of foster youth and 42 percent of those in the juvenile legal system, while Latino youth make up 26 percent of the child population, yet account for 39 percent of homeless students.
HMY are also more likely to be English learners or special education students. For example, young people in child welfare and the juvenile legal system were identified for special education services at up to seven times the rate of their peers, suggesting a “need for more state and federal investment in their education.”
Age distribution and concentration
Some HMY groups were found to vary by age, with foster care involving mostly young children (72 percent were ages 0-12), and the juvenile legal system handling primarily older youth (99 percent were ages 13-20), but homeless and migrant students were evenly split between elementary and secondary levels. The report states that finding so many students across systems are 12 years of age and younger “underscores the need to invest in long-term supports for HMY, particularly early childhood prevention programs.”
Migratory youth are an underserved and disenfranchised HMY group
Migrant students, primarily the children of Latino farmworkers, “face systemic barriers, disrupted education, and exploitative labor conditions, making them one of the most underserved HMY groups,” researchers determined. “Their migratory lifestyles contribute to high residential and school mobility, making it especially challenging for schools and other child and family programs to engage and serve them. Nonetheless, schools can serve as a focal point for bringing in services from the community that will benefit migratory students and their families.”
National data sources have limitations
Researchers found that national data on HMY includes inconsistencies in collection, definitions and reporting, “with gaps in critical metrics and longitudinal tracking, limiting the ability to assess their needs and outcomes effectively.”
Recommendations
“By providing greater national attention to their unique circumstances, we can foster equitable opportunities and ensure that mobility does not equate to marginalization,” researchers concluded. “Investing in highly mobile youth is not just a moral imperative but also a societal one. When we prioritize their stability, education, and well-being of our youth, we pave the way for them to contribute fully to their communities and to our nation’s future. We must create systems and strategies that reflect the reality that highly mobile youth can no longer remain unseen in our systems; it is time to illuminate their struggles, build off their resilience, prioritize their needs, and ensure they have the tangible support necessary to thrive.”
To accomplish this, the report includes several recommendations, such as:
- Developing centralized and integrated data systems to allow for better tracking of all HMY as they move across systems, regions and states to improve service delivery and outcome monitoring.
- Standardizing data collection and reporting processes across state and federal systems to solidify data exchange processes among HMY-serving systems (e.g., child welfare, state education agencies, juvenile legal system).
- Investing in longitudinal data collection to better understand the long-term effects of mobility, homelessness and experiences within child-serving systems on the education, health and other outcomes of HMY.
- Prioritizing upstream strategies that focus on prevention, systemic change and early interventions such as training for educators and providing targeted mental health resources.
