Here are his responses, and huge thank you to Matt for participating.
Unaccompanied Youth: What kind of work do you do for
unaccompanied youth?
Matt Hanson: As
an Outreach Worker, I do whatever I can to help advocate for the youth who I
get the opportunity to talk to. Since my
program doesn’t have an intake process or structured case management format, it
is all about what the youth wants/needs on their terms at that time.
Sometimes
that looks like helping them with diapers or food or maybe finding out about
available shelters in the area. Other
times it’s helping them come up with a plan to find work, get back into school,
or learn about area services (including others from our organization) that
might be able to help them.
What
I want most out of every interaction is for them to feel like they were heard.
Matt Hanson: That’s
a pretty subjective question, but I think I understand what you mean by
it. Just as no two people (even in the
same household) have the same life experiences that shape them, no youth have
the same story or life-changing circumstances when they come through my
doors. That said, no work to support
them or the eventual “success” looks the same as well.
As
I said above, being heard…truly listened to is a gift many have not
received. That kind of openness and
trust is earned carefully and cautiously – especially with those who have been
victimized or through a lot of trauma. That in itself is a huge success in my
book. Sometimes seeing those youth come back and still be ALIVE is a miracle.
They are the true survivors that I need to learn from. Meeting them on their
terms is the start of that lesson.
Honestly,
I go into each year saying that I am looking for one “success”. A single,
knowable, life-changing moment with just one youth during my 365 day job is
what it takes to make it worthwhile. Are there more than this that I see?
Absolutely. There are also many that I do not see and may not ever see come to
fruition many years down the road, but that’s not what my work is about. I also see so many things that look like
failure, but actually turn out to be the tipping point that leads to life
change. I am there for them regardless.
Unaccompanied Youth: What do you see the unaccompanied
youth struggle with the most?
Matt Hanson: There
is a far-too-common held idea that if the homeless just had a place to live or
a job, they would be set. The reality is that many of the youth I serve find
places to live (albeit unsafe), do not starve (although it’s a poor diet), and
have some sort of income (often illegally gained). Homeless/couch-hopping youth
in Northern Minnesota find a way to survive by any means necessary, because
anything less is death by the elements.
They are survivors.
If
I had to list the most common barriers, they would be as such:
-
Lack
of safe, affordable housing
-
No
living wage employment
-
Unreliable
transportation
-
Alcohol/Substance
issues
-
Mental
health (undiagnosed or unregulated)
-
Pregnant/parenting
-
No
positive support
Unaccompanied Youth: On average, how many unaccompanied
youth do you see/help/work with in one year?
Matt Hanson: My
outreach program served 563 different youth (age 21 and under) last year.
Unaccompanied Youth: What is the biggest struggle you have
found when working with unaccompanied youth?
Matt Hanson: I
might be an anomaly, but I have never struggled to work with youth – whether it
was finding them, relating to them, or sorting through what they have going
on. That being said, the work is not
easy. It’s stressful, frustrating and
heart-breaking work, but it’s also incredibly rewarding, hilarious, and I
wouldn’t trade the experiences for the world.
My
biggest struggles have been in regards to staffing, funding, and the various
time constraints that come with a non-profit that is dependent on grants.
Unaccompanied Youth: On average, do more
unaccompanied youth struggle or thrive?
Matt Hanson: That
is really unquantifiable, but I would say instead that they survive. Whether
survival is struggling or thriving, that’s totally relative and a matter of
perspective. If you know anything about
Maslow’s hierarchy of need, it’s very difficult to achieve any level above the
one you’re on if you have unfulfilled needs. Many of the youth I work with have
very few basic needs being safely and consistently met.
Unaccompanied Youth: In what ways are unaccompanied youth
better off?
Matt Hanson: Mankind
was not meant to be alone, nor youth apart from their families. That said, in situations where a youth flees
his “home” (I use that term loosely) as a result of abuse, neglect, etc. it is essential
to their survival.
Unaccompanied Youth: Anything else you would like to add?
Matt Hanson: Sure.
Thanks for the opportunity to speak about a subculture that is not only close
to my heart, but an intricate piece of our communities - whether we acknowledge
them or not.
I’d
also like to challenge everyone to take a step back and examine how you view
those around you. There are a lot of preconceived notions about who the
homeless are and what has gotten them to where they are. Very few of the
thousands of youth I have served over the years have chosen to couch hop or be
homeless. Many of us do not realize how blessed we are for having been given
simple advantages through our families, finances, circumstances etc.
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