Key learning points
- To determine which children are in vulnerable situations and need help, the risk factors they face need to be identified.
- Helping street children includes strengthening protective factors that can reduce the impact of the risks.
- Effective interventions to help children at risk need to be practical and flexible to their different needs, and involve people, institutions and systems that care about and support them.
Research on street children in Brazil must meet the children where they are
What is one simple thing that street children would like to improve their lives? When we asked street kids in Brazil, we wondered if they would talk about iPhones, new clothes or sneakers. But the children did not focus on material things. Many asked for “somewhere I can put my stuff”. Others asked “a place that is mine, hidden from the world.” They were looking for privacy, because when you live on the street, everything is public.
Some time later, my friend, the director of a Brazilian children’s home, asked my advice. “We cannot keep the children off the streets. They come and they are gone. We can’t keep them safe if they don’t come back every night. What can I do?” My suggestion was to give each child a locker and a key. “You can keep spare keys in the office, but promise me you won’t search those lockers,” I advised.
We know from developmental psychology that every child needs someone who really cares about them.
A month later I returned. “Are you a magician?” my friend laughed. The children returned at night to stay in the shelter. Later we found out what they stored in those shelves. Simple things: some shampoo, scraps of paper, a document. A little privacy, in the form of a small locker, made all the difference where the kids spent the night.
This example shows why our teams of researchers studying Brazil’s street children have focused on getting out of our ivory towers for over 30 years. We need to understand the lives of street children to identify interventions that really support their development. In the extensive academic learning of children’s development, we need to find what is relevant to their lives and translate this combined, well-established understanding into effective, practical interventions.
to define street children
We studied children of all ages in Brazilian urban areas. In our work we have learned a lot – about terminology, the needs of children and impactful interventions – thanks to our research teams, many collaborators and mentors. First, we realized that conventional definitions of street children were inadequate at best and often wrong. They tended to focus on important activities, such as begging or sweeping windshields, where children slept, or their family ties. But these definitions did not fit well and were not a basis for effective interventions.
We rarely found children who had completely lost contact with family. Sleeping locations also clouded the picture: some lived at home and worked on the street, occasionally sleeping there. Others occasionally slept on the street for weeks, but then returned home.
Photo provided by the author.
Instead, we categorize children based on the risks they face (e.g., gang contact, drug use, sexual exploitation) and the programs and people available to protect them (e.g., school attendance, supportive social networks, contact with caring adults ). With this approach, we draw on what is known about the consequences of exposing vulnerable children to developmental risks.
We also shine a light on factors that already exist to protect them. This helps us identify actions that are tailored to each child, based on well-proven knowledge. It means that in our work we combine the insights of rigorous developmental science with in-depth knowledge of the lives of street children.
Find a person who really cares about the child
We know from developmental psychology that every child needs someone who really cares about them. But what does that mean for street children? Most Doing have relationships with family members. But many of those relationships have major issues, including abuse. These kids know that their home isn’t always a place to be all the time.
Attachment to school is a very important protective factor, especially for young people in their early teens, for both girls and boys.
They are also smart. They understand how to find people who can take care of them. We have found many people in institutions and shelters who recognize this central need of children and will play a protective, constant role in children’s lives. It is important to build on these opportunities for children.
School is essential in this. In our study, attachment to school is a very important protective factor, especially for young people in their early teens, for both girls and boys. This finding highlights the crucial role schools can play, but they must be prepared to embrace these children.
Street children want to go to school
Some people say that street children don’t want to go to school or learn. That is not true. It’s not easy for them. They don’t have someone to wake them up every morning to go to school. They lack paper, notebooks and pencils, as well as a place to keep school supplies for the next day.
In addition, street children may be subject to prejudice from other students and teachers. Surviving on the streets requires constant vigilance for potential dangers, so it can be difficult to maintain self-discipline and concentration at school. But given the chance, most of the street children we met love school. They want to go. But they need an open school, not a place where they have to arrive at exactly 8 o’clock. The school should be flexible and welcoming: they might be there at 9 am. There must be breakfast for them.
We also learned about psychological interventions that support children who have experienced trauma. For example, we know that group therapy can be very effective, especially for girls who have experienced sexual exploitation, but is less helpful for boys, who may be less able to confide in groups and need more one-on-one approaches.
Finally, do good, but inadvertently do harm
Finally, we have found that services and institutions that strive to get children off the streets sometimes unintentionally achieve the opposite. Some children told us that in order to access care facilities and services, they had to “pretend” to be street children, giving that identity a high status. Instead of slowing down the migration of children to the streets, these institutions pushed children into street life. We had to go to the directors of these institutions and advise them to change their approach.
And they did. They introduced more rules and expectations about what the kids should do, such as attending certain programs and bringing a responsible adult with them, so they didn’t just come in for new clothes and disappear. They were really off the street.
Perhaps one of the most important lessons we learned from our innovative approach is that traditional investigative techniques, where academics usually observe and then walk away with their findings, are not ethical in this environment. We always ask ourselves: “How can we learn from and inform from practice? How can we contribute to the well-being of these children, here, now, for us?” We must be careful never to exploit the misery of many for our own personal academic advancement.