Young peoples' narratives of family discord as an antecedent to their homelessness

The aim of the research was to investigate the possible explanations for young people becoming homeless, with a particular focus on family discord. Historically, research has focused on the negative behaviours of homeless adolescents. However, there appears to be little understanding of how or why these behaviours begin, or what they mean for the young person concerned (Rosenthal & Rotheram-Borus, 2005). We take a critical psychological approach which allows us to explore those ‘soft’ experiences which contribute to ‘who we are’ and ‘what has made us who we are’ (Woodhead, 1999), which also challenges the notion of the deterministically damaged future. Twelve participants were interviewed using a narrative approach to data collection. All the participants were living in a youth hostel for homeless young people at the time of interview. Their ages ranged from 16-25 years. Whilst only two female participants agreed to be interviewed (10 were male) both genders talked at length about significant female ‘others’ in their lives such as mothers and sisters. This poster will focus on two themes which interrogate the interactions within the family as an antecedent to homelessness. Key themes were ‘discussions of rejection’ and ‘talk of resilience’ and this poster will interrogate the roles that female family members played in those themes