Purpose
Over 4 million unaccompanied minors and youth experience homelessness yearly in the US, yet their voice is largely silent in national surveys. Thus their needs are little accounted for in policy and planning. Research studies of youth experiencing homelessness (YEH) rely primarily on convenience samples in a single geographical area, generally large cities. Youth-engaged methods are needed to ensure the inclusion of a large and diverse population of youth from a broad geographic area. In order to assess the needs of youth in San Francisco and Alameda Counties, we conducted a pilot online survey, the COVID-19 Youth Impact Survey, employing Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR).
Methods
Undergraduate and graduate students with lived experience of homelessness or extensive experience serving unhoused communities, along with paid community interns with lived experiences were recruited and trained to design, administer and analyze an online survey in English. Respondents were recruited through flyers, social media, youth-to-youth word of mouth, collaboration with multiple nonprofit, governmental and youth collatorators. service providers across the counties, high schools, McKinney Vento providers, youth advisory boards, local community colleges and our university, and SF, Oakland and Alameda County local government. The survey included items to identify bots or repeat survey takers as well as some open-ended questions. We posted resources for vulnerable youth, information about our team and relevant prior publications for participants. We employed the same site to publicly post preliminary data results The survey initially offered no monetary reimbursement, however an online $10 reimbursement was added early in the process. The study was approved by the UC Berkeley Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects.
Results
We received 4,487 responses to our English language survey in over two and a half weeks. We had few responses initially when no reimbursement was offered (approximately 30 over 18 weeks). We instituted a $10 gift card after IRB approval was obtained and received 1720 responses within 48 hours, followed by two rounds of closing the survey and making before closing it. We cleaned the data primarily through analysis of open ended items. Use of a virtual UID, CAPTCHA, and physical location identified few of the invalid responses. After final data cleaning, 386 youth from San Francisco and Alameda counties had responded. The demographics of our sample are reported elsewhere. However, although the sample included primarily respondents from larger cities (Oakland, SF, and Berkeley) we also recruited respondents from surrounding suburban areas and smaller cities.
Conclusions
Engagement of youth through an online platform is challenging due to methodological and reimbursement limitations. Engagement of youth in large-scale surveys will require providing reimbursements that are meaningful to youth while limiting bots and opportunistic respondents.
Sources of Support
This study was funded by the UCLA Life Course Intervention Network, and the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative.