Building connections to health for homeless children and families: Nurse practitioner led health prevention and intervention model of care

Internationally, the fastest growing area of homelessness is homeless families 1,2,3 with services often ill-equipped to deal with the needs of homeless children. 4 Homeless children face multiple adversities related to inadequate food, nutrition, poverty and lack of access to services aiding child health and development. 3,5 Internationally there are known linkages between child mal-development (physically, socially and mentally) and levels of economic and social stress associated with life circumstances, such as homelessness. 6,7,8 This results in costly health service provision across the lifespan with every dollar spent in early child preventive health measures saving $17 in adult health interventions. 6,7,8 Accordingly, community based programs seek to address disadvantage through federally government funded programs