Connecting homeless youth to supportive others and boosting their belief in their abilities can help them to address problems in their lives.

Over 1.6 million young people are homeless in the US, an alternative that for many is one of last resort to escape abuse and conflict at home. With homelessness often linked to depression and substance misuse, how can we improve the situation of young people who find themselves in this position? Using a sample of homeless youth in Austin, Denver and Los Angeles, Stephanie Begun examines at the importance of social connectedness (how close one feels to the social world of others) and self-efficacy (an individual’s perception of the difficulty of performing a task or behaving in a certain way) to homeless youth. She finds that while greater social connectedness among homeless youth was linked to lower rates of depression and substance misuse, higher rates of self-efficacy was not.