Two experienced youth-serving providers in Connecticut underwent training to launch a new effort to identify homeless youth at the greatest risk of experiencing long-term homelessness. The Youth Continuum in New Haven and The Connection, Inc. in Hartford will deliver a questionnaire to at least 120 youth, with the goal of utilizing the data to inform housing and services capacity planning for youth transitioning out of state care or otherwise experiencing life on the streets.
On October 9, 2014, both agencies received training from Dr.Eric Rice in the Transition Aged Youth (TAY) Triage Tool, which until this point has only been administered in California. The TAY Triage Tool is a youth-specific set of non-invasive questions that can be quickly delivered to determine whether a homeless young person is on a trajectory to experiencing five of more years of homelessness.
The tool consists of a six point scale, with the recommendation that homeless youth with a score of 4 or higher should be prioritized for supportive housing. For communities seeking to create or increase their inventory of supportive housing for youth and young adults, the TAY Triage Tool provides a mechanism for collecting targeted data to inform the planning process.
In 2012, CSH began working with Dr. Eric Rice, Associate Professor at the University of Southern California School of Social Work, to develop the TAY Triage Tool. The participation of Youth Continuum and The Connection, Inc. will contribute to the development of a rigorous, multi-site dataset to further establish generalizability of the TAY Triage Tool.
Learn more about the TAY Triage Tool.
CSH would like to extend thanks to Dr. Eric Rice, USC for his passion and dedication to the homeless youth population, and to recognize the efforts of Paul Kosowsky of Youth Continuum and John Lawlor of The Connection, Inc. and the staff at these agencies for their time and for their commitment to this project.
