Home Is Where the Heart Is

The Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness and MIU4 cordially invite you to submit your artwork for our "Home Is Where the Heart Is" Valentine's Day 2024 art contest for homelessness awareness!

Theme: Home Is Where the Heart Is

Three Categories:

• Grades K-4

• Grades 5-8

• Grades 9-12

When: Submissions due by January 26, 2024

All participants will receive an award. The top 3 winners will receive additional prizes, including their artwork featured on posters for the 2024 November Homelessness Awareness Month.

* The top winner will be announced on Valentine's Day 2024 and have their artwork featured on a t-shirt created by the MIU4 print department.

Steps to participate:

1) Create a unique piece of art with the theme of: Home Is Where the Heart Is

2) Have parent/guardian sign a release form for each student (attached below)

3) Send artwork (with student's name/grade) AND signed release form to artcontest2024@miu4.org - by January 26, 2024.

*Please note: artwork without a parental release form cannot be entered into the contest.

November has been a time to acknowledge those children and families experiencing homelessness since 2007. As many as 4.2 million youth per year experience homelessness. Along with losing their home, community, friends, and routines as well as their sense of stability and safety, many experiencing homelessness are also victims of trauma. Youth experiencing homelessness are exposed to countless dangers, with an increased likelihood of substance abuse, early parenthood, impulsivity, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and a vulnerability to being trafficked. (http://www.nctsn.org).

Schools use the definition of homeless established by the education subtitle of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. It states that a child or youth who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence is considered homeless. The law also provides several examples of living arrangements that are considered homeless because they are not fixed, regular, and adequate. Sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason is the most common form of homelessness experienced by school-age children in the United States. When faced with homelessness, some families are able to stay in hotels or motels; living in a hotel or motel due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations. Many children and youth also live in unsheltered situations, which can include campgrounds or public places not meant for human habitation, such as parks, bus or train stations, and abandoned buildings.

To learn more about youth homelessness:

• National Center for Homeless Education
• Pennsylvania’s Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness Program – Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness (center-school.org)
• Homeless Education (pa.gov)

Sponsored by: Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV - Wendy Kinnear - Region 5 Coordinator

For more information contact: Braelene Miller - Braelene.Miller@miu4.org (or) 724-458-6700 x: 1512