Abstract

Attachment, social network and homelessness in young people. Tavecchio, L.W.C.; Thomeer, M.; Meeus, W. Published in: Social Behavior and Personality DOI: 10. 2224/sbp.1999.27.3.247 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Tavecchio, L. W. C., Thomeer, M., & Meeus, W. (1999). Attachment, social network and homelessness in young people. Social Behavior and Personality, 27, 247-262. https://doi.org/10. 2224/sbp.1999.27.3.247 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Homelessness in young people is partially explained within the framework of attachment theory. The relationship between family background, parenting style, experiences of separation and loss, and quality of the attachment relationship was examined in a group of homeless youths (n=108) and two comparison groups, i.e. residential youths ( n=85) and a large control group of youths from the 'standard' population (n=1228). Also, data regarding the influence of social support were obtained. Results indicate that growing up in a family with divorced parents, and especially a lack of parental responsiveness and emotional support are significant factors in the genesis of homelessness. Social support systems can, however, act as a protective factor and thus prevent the development of homelessness. As noted by Van der Ploeg and Scholte (1997, pp. 16-18), the number of homeless youngsters all over the world has reached staggering figures. Research in the United States provides different estimates of homeless youth, with figures ranging between 100,000 and 300,000 adolescents living on the streets. James, 248 HOMELESSNESS IN YOUNG PEOPLE Homelessness must be considered a process which starts with running away from home, a foster family or from a residential center. Most of these youngsters return to their (residential) home. However, approximately one out of every ten does not, but keeps on moving from friends to strangers, and from squats to shelters, hoping to find a more permanent place. When there is no one to provide them with a roof over their head temporarily, they will find themselves on the street (Van der Ploeg & Scholte, 1997). Structural developments within society, such as economic deprivation and its social consequences, are probably the major cause of young people's living on the streets outside the Western world. For many youngsters in the United States, Canada or Western Europe the root causes for homelessness more often seem to lie in adverse family experiences, such as parental neglect in infancy and childhood, aggravated by negative schooling experiences during middle childhood and adolescence As for the situation in Europe, until very recently the presence of homeless youth in European cities was an unknown, or at least not a publicly discussed, issue on the political agendas of the European member states As previously mentioned, there are certain structural developments within society, such as unemployment, poverty, and shortage of affordable and accessible housing, which may serve as explanations for the growing number of homeless youths. However, in our opinion, this more 'structural' view seems only marginally applicable to the situation in the Netherlands (cf. De Feijter & Blok, 1997). For a better understanding of the roots of youth homelessness in the Dutch context, our main focus will be on a social-psychological approach. From such a perspective homelessness can -partially -be explained by an individual lack of social skills leading to the inability to develop and maintain contacts and, therefore, to inadequate or insufficient social support (cf. Heydendael, 1993). THEORETICAL BASIS To provide an explanation for homelessness in adolescents and young adults, this study draws support from the socio-ecological developmental model of problem 249 HOMELESSNESS IN YOUNG PEOPLE behavior ( In the subsystem 'family', a disharmonious, negative family atmosphere with an insecure attachment climate is considered an important antecedent of problem behavior, in this case running away. An explanation for this may be drawn from the attachment theory developed by Bowlby (1969Bowlby ( -1980 If the young child finds that the caregiver meets his fundamental needs, he will develop a sense of basic security, internally represented in a 'secure' working model of attachment. This mental model is formed on the basis of the child's expectations concerning support from the environment, expectations based in turn on the child's experiences with his caregivers during the first months and years of his life. At the same time the child develops an image of himself within this working model as someone who is, or is not, capable of dealing effectively with the environment and of getting the attention which he needs (cf. The working models serve as a guideline and a basic framework for later transactions with the environment, especially for the course taken by one's own and others' behavior in personal and social relationships, and the way in which this behavior is interpreted. In Bowlby's view, the child who grows up with the constant 'non-availability' and rejection of his parents will consciously or unconsciously try to eliminate the need for the proximity of others. Such experiences lead to the development of 'insecure' working models of attachment, which may take a number of different forms. The nature of the perceived lack of availability 1 Generally in this article, for reasons of convenience, 'he', 'him', etc., will be used to refer to 'he/she', 'him/her', etc. 250 HOMELESSNESS IN YOUNG PEOPLE and the working models which are developed determine how an individual functions in relationships and which kinds of relationships are formed The more consistent the insecure attachment experiences, the more the child will develop a working model in which he constructs a negative image of both himself and the surrounding world: in his confrontation with the world he can rely on neither his own competence nor on the support of his environment. As the working model becomes stronger, he will interpret his further experiences also within this framework and the pattern will thus become increasingly difficult to break. The methods which the child originally developed in order to get by will also acquire more permanent forms and become an unconscious response pattern. From the perspective of this theory, the problem of running away and staying away from home and/or becoming homeless is not just an incident or the direct consequence of a conflict with the parents. It is more likely to be a deeply rooted psychological problem, arising out of a lack of trust in the availability and accessibility of the caregiver (Stefanidis, Pennbridge, But, are there any factors which are capable of inhibiting this negative development? Besides characteristics of the child and the family which can prevent a negative development, Garmezy (1985) identifies a third category of protective factors relating to the possibility of support outside the family in the form of a social network. This social network may consist of other significant adults, such as family members, teachers, and social workers, but can consist also of peers, such as friends, classmates, colleagues, steady boy/girlfriend, or a combination of the two categories. Historical developments in recent decades have resulted in an increase in the influence of peers on adolescents Summarizing the foregoing in terms of protective and risk factors, we can develop the following theory regarding the etiology of homelessness or runaway behavior. An insecure attachment climate is a risk factor, because it results in the child's forming a negative image both of himself and of his immediate social environment. Given sufficient consistency of the negative experiences, the child develops an insecure working model, by which the negative image is generalized 251 HOMELESSNESS IN YOUNG PEOPLE to the wider social environment. This can lead to relational incompetence and, ultimately, to runaway behavior. However, if the insecure attachment climate within the family is compensated for by positive experiences in the wider social environment, for example in the form of a supportive network of adults and/or peers, the child will develop a more positive image both of himself and of that environment. This also results in a more balanced working model and reduces the risk of developing relational incompetence and consequent runaway behavior. A supportive social network might thus function as a protective factor in preventing the development of homelessness. MAIN QUESTIONS To test the validity of this theory, a study was conducted in which various groups were compared on a number of background variables, on characteristics which are indicative of the quality of attachment, and on the size and perceived quality of the social network. The research questions which guided this study were: 1. Is there a difference between homeless youths and other youths in the investigated characteristics? 2. Which of these characteristics should be regarded as antecedents of homelessness? 3. Does the presence of a social network outside the immediate family context reduce the risk of homelessness developing? METHOD SUBJECTS The research was carried out with three groups. All the participants in the study were selected according to age (15-24) and ethnicity (i.e., raised by an ethnically Dutch mother). The research groups may be characterized as follows: 1. Homeless youth (Ho), the target group, consisting of 70 boys and 38 girls with an average age of 20 and 18 years respectively. They were recruited at assistance providing institutions throughout the Netherlands specializing in the provision of general or more specific shelter for (homeless) young people. A young person was defined as homeless if he/she had been without a fixed home or residence for at least three months, and during that time had slept at a minimum of three different places. The subjects in the target group had been homeless for an average of 16.5 months, and had slept at six different places during the three months preceding the study. Sixty percent of these youths had a history of institutional care of 3.5 years on average. During that time they stayed in an average of 2.2 different institutions (min. 1 -max. 6). This group of homeless youths had been homeless for almost twice as long as the youths who had not lived in institutions (20 and 10 months, respectively). 2. Residential youth (R), a comparison group of 50 boys and 35 girls with an 252 HOMELESSNESS IN YOUNG PEOPLE average age of 18 years, ex-residents of the Nationally Working Residential Facilities (LWRV). The average length of time spent in institutional care was 3.5 years -as for the homeless youths with an institutional history -but the number of institutions involved was significantly lower: an average of 1.62 (p <.01; min. 1 -max. 4). At the time of recruitment, these respondents had to have left the residential institution at most 3 years and at least 3 months ago, may not have been transferred to another residential institution, and may not have become homeless. A comparison group of ex-residential youth was chosen because previous research had shown that 60 to 80 percent of homeless youths have spent a shorter or longer period of time in residential institutions. Residents of the LWRV institutions were chosen precisely because of the severity of their problems, which are largely similar to those of homeless youths (Haaster, The total sample comprises 1421 respondents, 670 boys and 751 girls, divided across a target group, a control group and a comparison group. The average age is 19 years. The Utrecht Control group and the Homeless youth are on average slightly older than the Residential youth. In the Homeless group, the boys are older than the girls. PROCEDURES AND MEASURES From the perspective of attachment theory it is possible to indicate a number of factors which either constitute conditions for the development of a secure attachment relationship, or are a consequence of this. These factors must be regarded as indicators of the quality of attachment. Thus, the responsiveness of the significant caregivers and the number and severity of separation experiences are regarded as determinants of the quality of the attachment relationship. The degree to which the subject feels at ease in intimate relationships, his specific attachment style, is regarded as the outcome of attachment experiences up to now. The size and perceived quality of the social network, i.e. the number of people by whom the respondent says he is accepted and appreciated, is regarded as a consequence of the quality of attachment. The data were collected using closed interview questions and the following instruments. The subject's classification into social class was based on a 253 HOMELESSNESS IN YOUNG PEOPLE combination of educational and occupational level of the parents, and distinguishes five categories (E. van Ammers, personal communication, 11 July, 1996). The information about educational and occupational level of the parent(s) for the Utrecht Control group was provided by the parents themselves; for the other two groups, by the youths. In 1990, 18% of families in the Netherlands were in the highest class of large entrepreneurs, senior civil servants and academics; 20% were in the upper middle class and 20% in the lower; 35% were skilled laborers and 8% unskilled laborers. The responsiveness of the parents was measured using the Parental Bonding Instrument An empirical measure of the attachment indicator separation experiences was obtained by calculating the number of different rearing situations experienced by the subjects, on the basis of answers to the question about which caregivers had reared them at which periods in their lives. After all, a change in the rearing situation entails the temporary or long-term separation from one or more important attachment figures, and the need to adapt to an entirely new (social) environment. The age at which the break from the first rearing environment took place also was determined; this may be seen as one of the factors determining the severity of the separation experience. The correlation between the two variables is r = -.76,