At first, I had no idea what to do for my Teaching Project. I enjoy doing presentations, but did not know who to present to. Finally, I decided to do a PowerPoint presentation to my EDUG 331 Child Development class last Wednesday. My topic was “Homeless Children and Youth in America.” My audience was my Child Development class and my professor. My purpose was to find a younger audience to inform them of issues among the homeless youth and share resources within this area. Most of the students in my class are interested in becoming educators and should be aware of this issue. I used information from the book “Braving the Streets,” the book “Homeless Mothers,” my Data Exercise 2 of Homeless Counts, and a number of other resources. In the beginning, my presentation included: who are the homeless, statistics, causes, how it affects their development, and a short video. These young people are sometimes referred to as “unaccompanied” youth. One difficulty was that the video took a long time to load. The short video discussed the homeless youth living in L.A. Most of them stated how they ended up there and what they feared the most about being homeless. I believe it is important to recognize that not all stories and situations are the same. It is different for every family or child. Youth homelessness is on the rise in the United States. According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, it is almost 2 million. I also touched on homeless counts and how the problem with youth is that they are most often undercounted. Next, I included some agencies and resources in the Redlands area. These were the Youth Hope Foundation, Our House, and the Redlands Family Service Association, which I learned about from our internship presentations. I added in a section about the Homeless Outreach team of the San Bernardino County Sheriffs (HOPE) who say to call 211 if a homeless related issue. At the end, I added in a section for questions, comments, and concerns.

Thankfully, the class was very engaged and I felt like they were actually paying attention.  I believe this was a good audience to share this issue with. My professor commented and said that she enjoyed that I shared agencies and resources in the Redlands area. She also encouraged all of us to get involved in these youth agencies, especially because she believes that the youth may feel more comfortable opening up with younger people, like us. I agreed. I was glad to have a few students comment. One student discussed how he had participated in the San Bernardino Homeless Count last year. When the students finished with their comments, my professor asked the class if we were surprised at all by the large number of homeless youth. Some students said yes, but most were not surprised. I had my friend film the presentation. After class, my professor thanked me for the presentation. I was glad that I had the Child Development class and the supportive professor to share what I had learned about homelessness.