Mental and emotional health: impediments to the education of New York City’s homeless children

ABSTRACT This brief asserts that New York City’s (NYC) public schools best support the education of homeless students by prioritizing their emotional and mental health through expanding counselors’ reach, emphasizing extracurriculars, and facilitating communication. Results are derived from surveys and interviews of NYC public school administrators, faculty, teachers, and social workers. Survey and interview results from this research indicate that emotional and mental health concerns are of particular detriment to homeless students’ educational experiences. These surveys and interviews shed light on the most common and most innovative methods for minimizing mental and emotional health barriers faced by homeless children in the course of their education, as implemented by certain schools.