The influence of housing, education and employment trajectories on mental health and behavioral outcomes for youth receiving child welfare and community services

OBJECTIVE: While prior studies of youth who receive child welfare and community services (CWCS) has shown this population to be at greater risk for negative psychological and social outcomes, this study examines potential resilience-enabling patterns of housing and work and educational engagement that predict positive development while services are being accessed and after services end. METHOD: A longitudinal sample consisting of 169 youth from Nova Scotia, Canada, who were receiving CWCS were surveyed annually from 2022 to 2024. At baseline, the mean age was 16.49 years (SD = 1.48, range = 14-19), 56.00% females, 78.10% self-identified as White, 85.50% were engaged in work and/or education, and 90.50% lived in self-directed or supported housing provided by child welfare and/or community services. Participants were grouped based on their trajectories in (A) housing and (B) engagement in work and/or education across three annual assessments. Repeated-measures ANOVAs examined within-group changes over time and between-group differences in temporal patterns of risk exposure, access to psychosocial and institutional resources, and behavioral outcomes. RESULTS: In total, 62.10% of participants remained consistently engaged in work and/or education throughout the study, 5.90% were consistently not engaged, 19.00% transitioned from engaged to disengaged, and 13.00% transitioned from disengaged to engaged by the end of the study. The majority of participants, 78.40%, lived in self-directed or supported housing throughout the study, while 10.80% transitioned into unstable housing and another 10.80% transitioned from unstable to stable housing during the study. Significant differences were found between housing trajectories regarding temporal patterns of future orientation, substance use, psychological resilience, and caregiver support. However, no significant differences were observed between the engagement in work and/or education trajectories. Within-group differences were found for certain housing and engagement trajectories across several variables. CONCLUSIONS: The results show that helping youth who receive child welfare and community services transition into and maintain stable housing may lead to improvements in access to resilience-enabling resources that support positive development and prosocial behavioral outcomes. A pattern of housing stability for youth receiving services is also associated with decreases in risk exposure, while transitioning to unstable housing is predictive of increased substance use and decreased positive future orientation.