Helping-Seeking Behaviors and Coping Strategies Among Homeless Youth

Purpose: Homeless youth experience numerous stressors, including elevated rates of victimization. Although multiple services are available, they often go underutilized, as homeless youth are difficult to engage in formal agency services. Limited help-seeking research with this population suggests their frequent use of informal supports (e.g., peers and family) as a complement or supplement to agency-based services. A better understanding of where and why homeless youth seek help during times of distress could inform efforts to engage them in supportive formal and informal helping relationships. Utilizing qualitative interviews with a large, geographically-diverse sample, this study sought homeless youths’ perspectives on 1) the types of help received from different individuals during times of distress and, 2) for those who choose not to seek help, their reasons for, and methods of, coping on their own.

 Method: Through purposive sampling, 145 homeless youth were recruited from agencies serving homeless youth in Los Angeles [n=50], Denver [n=50], and Austin [n=45] to participate in semi-structured qualitative interviews. Qualitative open-ended questions broadly investigated trauma and stress while homeless. This analysis focused on one section of the interview that investigated coping, querying youth from whom they seek help, what happens when they seek help, and, for those who indicated not seeking help, why. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using iterative content analysis by four coders.

 Results: Youth sought support from peers (e.g., friends, significant others), family (e.g., parents, siblings, extended family), and formal services (e.g., agency staff, therapeutic counselors, law enforcement). They received three forms of support: informational (connection to services/resources), emotional (encouragement, “someone to vent to,” personal advice), and instrumental (material assistance such as lodging, food, cash, medicine). Youth most often described seeking emotional support, and tended to go to peers most frequently, followed by formal services and family. Youth were more likely to approach formal services, rather than peers or family, for instrumental and informational support. Despite seeking help, many youth shared that they received none, and failed support was more common from peers and family. Some youth described barriers to help-seeking, including attempting to avoid triggering memories, perceptions that no one would be able to help, and previous violations of their trust. Such barriers prompted youth to cope on their own; common self-reliance coping strategies included “shutting down,” artistic expression, isolating themselves, and attempting to think positively.

 Implications: Despite being perceived as difficult to engage, homeless youth describe seeking help from many sources in their lives, including professionals, particularly when they need information and tangible resources. However, most youth seek emotional support from peers, who, as previous research indicates, do not always provide healthy support systems. Findings also suggest that the help-seeking process is not linear; even youth who choose to cope on their own often attempt intermittent help-seeking. Service providers’ efforts to establish trust might include clarifying the type of help youth seek and explicitly acknowledging youths’ past experiences with help-seeking. Furthermore, interventions should aid youth in connecting to pro-social informal support systems that can provide healthy forms of support in challenging times.