Challenging the Stereotypes: Unexpected Features of Sexual Exploitation among Homeless and Street-Involved Boys in Western Canada
Research about the sexual exploitation of homeless and street-involved boys is limited and often combined with that of girls. As aggregation can distort unique issues among genders which are exploited, this study provides information about the context of exploitation for homeless boys.
Meet Our New Managing Director
We’re pleased to welcome Dr. Ronita Nath as our new Managing Director at SARAVYC . Ronita will be leading the team to develop real world interventions and support the development of evidence-based recommendations for government, schools, and health professionals to reduce health inequities for marginalized youth.
The Links Between Sexual Abuse Severity, Running Away, and Parental Connectedness Among Youth at a Hospital-Based Child Advocacy Center
Abstract Purpose Runaway adolescents often have strained relationships with their parents. Given parental support is an important protective resource for traumatized young people, understanding differences in support within parent–adolescent relationships could aid in designing more effective interventions. We hypothesized (1) runaway adolescents seen at a Child Advocacy Center (CAC) would have poorer parental relationships than […]
Homeless & Street-Involved Indigenous LGBTQ2S Youth in British Columbia: Intersectionality, Challenges, Resilience & Cues for Action
Street-involved youth and youth experiencing homelessness in Canada are disproportionately likely to be Indigenous: while the Canadian census estimates about 6% of youth in Canada are Indigenous, previous multi-city surveys of street-involved youth and youth experiencing homelessness in Western Canada have found more than half identify as Aboriginal, First Nations, Inuit or Métis. The authors’ […]
Sexually Exploited Boys: What We Know and What We Don’t
Research and services focused on sexually exploited children and adolescents often target girls and leave out boys. However, research shows that boys often report similar rates of sexual exploitation as girls (10, 19, 27). This suggests that boys may experience more sexual exploitation than is commonly realized, while also facing greater barriers to what few […]
A systematic review of the state of the literature on sexually exploited boys internationally
Abstract This systematic review assessed the current state of the literature on sexually exploited boys internationally. We aimed to describe what is known about sexual exploitation of boys, identify gaps in the literature, provide implications for practice, and make recommendations for future research. Multiple database searches were conducted using a combination of controlled vocabulary and […]
Reorienting risk to resilience: street-involved youth perspectives on preventing the transition to injection drug use
Abstract Background: The Youth Injection Prevention (YIP) project aimed to identify factors associated with the prevention of transitioning to injection drug use (IDU) among street-involved youth (youth who had spent at least 3 consecutive nights without a fixed address or without their parents/caregivers in the previous six months) aged 16–24 years in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia. […]
Assessing exploitation experiences of adolescent girls and boys seen at a Child Advocacy Center
Abstract The primary aim of this study was to describe the abuse experiences of sexually exploited runaway adolescents seen at a Child Advocacy Center (N = 62). We also sought to identify risk behaviors, attributes of resiliency, laboratory results for sexually transmitted infection (STI) screens, and genital injuries from colposcopic exams. We used retrospective mixed-methods with in-depth […]
Our communities, our youth: The health of homeless and street-involved youth in BC
Homeless and street-involved youth are among the most vulnerable populations in Canada and experience significant health inequities. The 2014 Homeless and Street-Involved Youth Survey (HSIYS) captured information from youth living in 13 diverse communities across British Columbia between October 2014 and January 2015. A total of 689 youth (aged 12–19 years) participated, from which we […]
Four organizations partnered to address youth homelessness in Vancouver: Analysis of an intersectoral collaboration
In the mid-2000’s, health care and social service providers in Vancouver witnessed street-involved youth with undiagnosed and/or under-treated mental illnesses repeatedly entering their services in a state of chaos and crisis. They had no means of intervening with youth through the housing and mental health systems. In an attempt to break this cycle and fill […]
