Homeless Services - Transition Education Program (TEP)

What You Need to Know to Help Your Child in School

Lo que necesita saber para ayudar a su hijo en la escuela

FEDERAL

• U.S. Department of Education: Education for Homeless Children and Youths (EHCY) The U.S. Department of Education is the federal agency charged with the administration and oversight of the McKinney-Vento Act's Education for Homeless Children and Youths program.
• National Center for Homeless Education (NCHE) Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Center for Homeless Education is a national resource center of research and information enabling communities to successfully address the needs of homeless children and youth and their families. NCHE products include educational rights posters, parent brochures, the LEA Homeless Education Liaison Handbook, the State Coordinators' Handbook, and the NAEHCY listserv.

NATIONAL ADVOCACY

National Assn. for Education of Homeless Children & Youth (NAEHCY)

National Center on Family Homelessness (NCFH)

NCFH is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to developing long-term solutions to family homelessness. The Center is committed to:

• 1. building a rigorous knowledge base in the areas of family homelessness and poverty
  2. creating model programs, service demonstrations and technical assistance products
  3. disseminating information to increase public awareness and improve national, state, and local policies and programs.

National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP)

NLCHP monitors and enforces compliance with the McKinney-Vento Act, providing technical assistance to attorneys, service providers, parents and educators across the country to ensure that homeless children gain access to public school. The NLCHP website includes a self-advocacy kit, a flowchart for determining homelessness, reproducible Q&A booklets, and many other materials

YOUTH

National Runaway Switchboard

The mission of the National Runaway Switchboard (NRS) is to help keep America’s runaway and at-risk youth safe and off the streets. The organization serves as the federally designated national communication system for runaway and homeless youth.

National Network for Youth (NN4Y)

The National Network for Youth is dedicated to ensuring that young people can be safe and lead healthy and productive lives. In doing so, young people are championed; especially those who because of life circumstance, disadvantage, past abuse or community prejudice have less opportunity to become contributing members of their communities.

Schools of Hope Tutor Training: Homeless and Highly Mobile Students

As our community continues to recognize and support our highly mobile and homeless populations, it’s important for all adults working with students to learn about the issues they face and build strategies for working effectively with them.

These videos will introduce some of the concerns and needs these students experience as well as provide some guidance and suggestions for working with them.

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Click on the Homeless and Highly Mobile Students topic that you would like to learn more about:

The Voices in Our Community is an annual day long experience for students and their families experiencing homelessness hosted by MMSD Transition Education Program (TEP) and the Greater Madison Writing Project (GMWP).  Families are invited and provided with transportation to the UW-Madison Campus to participate in this event.  The day is grounded in writing and art and connects students and families with each other to explore where they come from and who they are. It also provides a way to share their stories with the broader community. The writing and art resulting from this experience are then made into a book by the TEP staff and printed by the Greater Madison Writing Project.  Sales from the book help to sustain this project and provide supports to families experiencing homelessness. 

 The goals of The Voices in Our Community Project include: 

• Empowering youth who have or are experiencing homelessness, find and develop their voice and make a change in their world.
• Helping all family members share experiences that are often not recognized openly in public and provide opportunities to connect with other homeless families. 

The books written by the youth and adult family members provide the MMSD TEP program with a safe way to share the authentic voices of the homeless with educators and also provides awareness and outreach to the community.

Video about Voices in Our Community Project

For more information contact Jani Koester 

Transition Education Program Donation Requests

• College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRA)
• National Runaway Switchboard
• Supporting the Education of Unaccompanied Students Experiencing Homelessness

Key Elements of McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (2015)

• Designate Homeless Liaison in every school district
• Definition of  homeless – lack of fixed, regular & adequate nighttime residence and living in:
  • Emergency or Family shelters, and some transitional housing
  • Unsheltered or inappropriate / inadequate shelter
    • Car, tent, abandoned building, self-paying motel
  • Sharing housing due to loss of housing, economic hardship or similar reason
  • Unaccompanied or migrant youth in above situations
• Rights of homeless youth and families
  • Right to immediate enrollment, without normally required documents
  • Right to fully participate in school programming & activities
    • Provide immediate free lunch for entire school year
    • Waive all school fees
    • Provide needed supplies and support
  • Right to attend school of origin or school of residence
    • Per parent request, pending dispute resolution
    • Right to attend for the duration of homelessness
    • Right to attend for the remainder of the school year once housed
  • Right to comparable transportation to school of origin
  • Right to other comparable educational services (SPED, Title 1)
  • Right to attend school with no segregation
  • Right to community resource information & referrals 

• Public awareness and collaboration

Additional Resources

Potential Warning Signs of Homelessness

If you would like additional assistance please Contact Us

Key Elements of McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (2015) - Spanish