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Abstract Family homeless shelters are critical contexts in which many young children develop; however, little is known about the developmental appropriateness of these settings, including their resources and the capacity of their staff to effectively meet the needs of the children and families they serve. The current study involves both quantitative and qualitative components to assess aspects of developmental appropriateness of US shelter spaces for children ages birth to 5 years, with an emphasis on staff knowledge, parenting programmes, and play spaces. Participants were 64 staff working in different family homeless shelters representing all 10 Housing and Urban Development regions. Data were collected via semistructured phone interviews. Results indicated that most shelters offered some type of parenting programme (65.5%) and had some developmentally appropriate space for families with young children (87.5%); however, the nature of these spaces and programmes varied considerably, with very few respondents describing use of evidence‐based practices. Findings on knowledge of early child development among shelter staff indicated substantial need for trainings on a range of topics, including typical child development, parent–child relationships, and impacts of trauma on families with young children. Furthermore, we identified a need for better measurement tools to assess knowledge of child development.
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Process Modeling in Humanitarian Settings: A Case Study and Lessons Learned
In spite of significant prior work, few scholars have addressed the unique problems of business process modelling in humanitarian settings. We surface and explore these challenges by treating the ‘guest intake process’ at homeless shelters as an exemplar. In most cities, the homeless shelters are a part of the ecosystem of care that includes hospitals, training agencies, housing agencies and others to support homeless individuals. The exemplar we have chosen represents the first line of defence for the homeless guests: the Intake practice at a homeless shelter, a process that remains fairly knowledge-intensive. Our work follows a collaborative research approach, working with the largest homeless shelter in the region. We conduct observations and interviews at the shelter to construct process models with the Petri Net formalism, followed by analytical experimentation. Lessons learned from the work are compared against prior research in modelling of knowledge-intensive processes. We find that process modelling in humanitarian settings such as homelessness remains fraught with problems. We identify new directions, where prior work in knowledge-intensive processes may require extensions in response to the unique nature of work in humanitarian settings. The paper elaborates these findings, illustrates with authentic examples, and outlines possibilities for future research and implications for practice
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- Award ID(s):
- 1951896
- PAR ID:
- 10297070
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS)
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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