The addition of the new RHY (Runaway and Homeless Youth) final rule (added to the Federal Register on 12/20/2016) provides clarification and outlines additional requirements for Basic Center, Transitional Living and Street Outreach Programs. These changes build on existing requirements present in the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act and changes made via the Reconnecting Homeless Youth Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-378). The new rule provides opportunities to strengthen existing services for runaway and homeless youth across the United States.

Youth Collaboratory reviewed the new rule and will provide resources and support as organizations make necessary changes to existing RHY programs. The new requirements will apply to existing funded projects beginning with the new fiscal year (October 1, 2017). In addition, the new rule immediately impacts all future RHY grant applications and projects.

 1.    Amended Purpose

The purpose of Runaway and Homeless Youth Program grants is to establish or strengthen community-based projects to provide runaway prevention, outreach, shelter, and transition services to runaway, homeless, or street youth or youth at risk of running away or becoming homeless.

2.    Added or Edited Definitions

• AFTERCARE (previously called aftercare services) means additional services provided beyond the period of residential stay that offer continuity and supportive follow-up to youth served by the program.
• CASE MANAGEMENT means identifying and assessing the needs of the client, including consulting with the client, and, as appropriate, arranging, coordinating, monitoring, evaluating, and advocating for a package of services to meet the specific needs of the client.
• CLIENT means a runaway, homeless, or street youth, or a youth at risk of running away or becoming homeless, who is served by a program grantee.
• CONGREGATE CARE means a shelter type that combines living quarters and restroom facilities with centralized dining services, shared living spaces, and access to social and recreational activities, and which is not a family home.
• CORE COMPETENCIES OF YOUTH WORKER means the ability to demonstrate skills in six domain areas:

1. Professionalism (including, but not limited to, consistent and reliable job performance, awareness and use of professional ethics to guide practice);
2. Applied Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach (including, but not limited to, skills to develop a Positive Youth Development plan and identifying the client’s strengths in order to best apply a Positive Youth Development framework);
3. Cultural and human diversity (including, but not limited to, gaining knowledge and skills to meet the needs of clients of a different race, ethnicity, nationality, religion/spirituality, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation);
4. Applied human development (including, but not limited to, understanding the developmental needs of those at risk and with special needs);
5. Relationship and communication (including, but not limited to, working with clients in a collaborative manner); and
6. Developmental practice methods (including, but not limited to, utilizing methods focused on genuine relationships, health, and safety, intervention planning).

• COUNSELING SERVICES means the provision of guidance, support, referrals for services including, but not limited to, health services, and advice to runaway or otherwise homeless youth and their families, as well as to youth and families when a young person is at risk of running away, as appropriate. These services are provided in consultation with clients and are designed to alleviate the problems that have put the youth at risk of running away or contributed to his or her running away or being homeless. Any treatment or referral to treatment that aims to change someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression is prohibited.
• DROP-IN CENTER (no longer includes “gateway services” such as food, shower, etc.) means a place operated and staffed for runaway or homeless youth that clients can visit without an appointment to get advice or information, to receive services or service referrals, or to meet other runaway or homeless youth.
• EDUCATION OR EMPLOYMENT means performance in and completion of educational and training activities, especially for younger youth, and starting and maintaining adequate and stable employment, particularly for older youth.
• HEALTH CARE SERVICES means physical, mental, behavioral, and dental health services. It includes services provided to runaway and homeless youth and in the case of Maternity Group Homes also includes services provided to a pregnant youth and the child(ren) of the youth. Where applicable and allowable within a program, it includes information on appropriate health-related services provided to family or household members of the youth. Any treatment or referral to treatment that aims to change someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression is prohibited.
• HOME-BASED SERVICES means services provided to youth and their families for the purpose of preventing such youth from running away or otherwise becoming separated from their families and assisting runaway youth to return to their families. It includes services that are provided in the residences of families (to the extent practicable), including intensive individual and family counseling and training relating to life skills and parenting.
• HOMELESS YOUTH means an individual who cannot live safely with a parent, legal guardian, or relative, and who has no other safe alternative living arrangement. For purposes of Basic Center Program eligibility, a homeless youth must be less than 18 years of age (or higher if allowed by a state or local law or regulation that applies to licensure requirements for child- or youth-serving facilities). For purposes of Transitional Living Program eligibility, a homeless youth cannot be less than 16 years of age and must be less than 22 years of age (unless the individual commenced his or her stay before age 22, and the maximum service period has not ended).
• HOST FAMILY HOME means a family or single adult home or domicile, other than that of a parent or permanent legal guardian, that provides shelter to homeless youth.
• INTAKE means a process for gathering information to assess eligibility and the services required to meet the immediate needs of the client. The intake process may be operated independently but grantees should, at minimum, ensure they are working with their local Continuum of Care Program to ensure that referrals are coordinated and youth have access to all of the community’s resources.
• JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM means agencies that include, but are not limited to, juvenile courts, correctional institutions, detention facilities, law enforcement, training schools, or agencies that use probation, parole, and/or court-ordered confinement.
• MATERNITY GROUP HOME means a community-based, adult-supervised transitional living arrangement where client oversight is provided on-site or on-call 24 hours a day and that provides pregnant or parenting youth and their children with a supportive environment in which to learn parenting skills, including child development, family budgeting, health and nutrition, and other skills to promote their long-term economic independence and ensure the well-being of their children.
• OUTREACH means finding runaway, homeless, and street youth, or youth at risk of becoming runaway or homeless, who might not use services due to lack of awareness or active avoidance, providing information to them about services and benefits, and encouraging the use of appropriate services.
• CONTACT (previously called outreach contact) means the engagement between Street Outreach Program staff and youth who are at risk of homelessness or runaway status or homeless youth in need of services that could reasonably lead to a shelter or significant harm reduction. Contact may occur on the streets, at a drop-in center, or at other locations known to be frequented by homeless, runaway, or street youth.
• PERMANENT CONNECTIONS means ongoing attachments to families or adult role models, communities, schools, and other positive social networks which support young people’s ability to access new ideas and opportunities that support thriving, and they provide a social safety net when young people are at-risk of re-entering homelessness.
• RISK AND PROTECTIVE FACTORS mean those factors that are measurable characteristics of a youth that can occur at multiple levels, including biological, psychological, family, community, and cultural levels, that precede and are associated with an outcome. Risk factors are associated with higher likelihood of problematic outcomes, and protective factors are associated with a higher likelihood of positive outcomes.
• RUNAWAY AND HOMELESS YOUTH PROJECT means a community-based program outside the juvenile justice or child welfare systems that provides runaway prevention, outreach, shelter, or transition services to runaway, homeless, or street youth or youth at risk of running away or becoming homeless.
• SAFE AND APPROPRIATE EXITS means settings that reflect achievement of the intended purposes of the Basic Center and Transitional Living Programs as outlined in section 382(a) of the Act.

Examples of Safe and Appropriate Exits are exits:

1. To the private residence of a parent, guardian, another adult relative, or another adult that has the youth’s best interest in mind and can provide a stable arrangement;
2. To another residential program if the youth’s transition to the other residential program is consistent with the youth’s needs; or
3. To independent living if consistent with the youth’s needs and abilities.

Safe and appropriate exits are not exits:

1. To the street;
2. To a locked correctional institute or detention center if the youth became involved in activities that lead to this exit after entering the program;
3. To another residential program if the youth’s transition to the other residential program is inconsistent with the youth’s needs; or
4. To an unknown or unspecified other living situation

• SCREENING AND ASSESSMENT means valid and reliable standardized instruments and practices used to identify each youth's individual strengths and needs across multiple aspects of health, wellbeing, and behavior in order to inform appropriate service decisions and provide a baseline for monitoring outcomes over time. Screening involves abbreviated instruments, for example with trauma and health problems, which can indicate certain youth for more thorough diagnostic assessments and service needs. Assessment, which is used here to mean assessment more broadly than for the purposes of diagnosis, involves evaluating multiple aspects of social, emotional, and behavioral competencies and functioning in order to inform service decisions and monitor outcomes.
• SERVICE PLAN OR TREATMENT PLAN means a written plan of action based on the assessment of client needs and strengths and engaging in joint problem solving with the client that identifies problems, sets goals, and describes a strategy for achieving those goals. To the extent possible, the plan should incorporate the use of trauma-informed, evidence-based, or evidence-informed interventions. As appropriate, the service and treatment plans should address both physical and mental safety issues.
• SHORT-TERM TRAINING means the provision of local, state, or regionally-based instruction to runaway or otherwise homeless youth service providers in skill areas that will directly strengthen service delivery.
• SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING means the development of key competencies, attitudes, and behaviors that equip a young person experiencing homelessness to avoid unhealthy risks and to succeed across multiple domains of daily life, including school, work, relationships, and community.
• STABLE HOUSING (previously shelter or stable housing) means a safe and reliable place to call home. Stable housing fulfills a critical and basic need for homeless youth. It is essential to enable functioning across a range of life activities.
• STATE means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and any territory or possession of the United States.
• STREET YOUTH means an individual who is a runaway youth or an indefinitely or intermittently homeless youth who spends a significant amount of time on the street or in other areas that increase the risk to such youth for sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, prostitution, or drug and/or alcohol abuse. For purposes of this definition, youth means an individual who is age 21 or less.
• SUPERVISED APARTMENTS mean a type of shelter setting using building(s) with separate residential units where client supervision is provided on-site or on call 24 hours a day.
• TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE means the provision of expertise or support for the purpose of strengthening the capabilities of grantee organizations to deliver services.
• TEMPORARY SHELTER means all Basic Center Program shelter settings in which runaway and homeless youth are provided room and board, crisis intervention, and other services on a 24-hour basis for up to 21 days. The 21-day restriction is on the use of RHY funds through the Basic Center Program, not a restriction on the length of stay permitted by the facility.

3. Intakes

The new rule specifies intake process may be operated independently but grantees should, at a minimum, ensure they are working with their local Continuum of Care Program so that referrals are coordinated and youth have access to all of the community’s resources.

Intakes (Basic Center Only)
The new rule specifies requirements for intakes within Basic Center (shelter) Programs. These include:

• Intake (and direct or indirect access to temporary shelter) available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week to all youth seeking services and temporary shelter that addresses and responds to immediate needs for crisis counseling, food, clothing, shelter, and health care.
• Contacting the parents, legal guardians or other relatives of each youth according to the best interests of the youth as soon as feasible, and no later than 72 hours of the youth entering the program. If a grantee determines that it is not in the best interest of the client to contact the parents, legal guardian or other relatives of the client, or if the grantee is unable to locate, or the youth refuses to disclose the contact information of, the parent, legal guardian or other relatives of the client, they must:

1. Inform another adult identified by the child;
2. Document why it is not in the client's best interest to contact the parent, legal guardian or other relatives, or why they are not able to contact the parent, legal guardian or other relatives; and
3. Send a copy of the documentation to the regional program specialist for review.

4. Programmatic Changes

Non-discrimination

The language in the new rule reaches beyond the previous requirements for organizations to develop policies and procedures to prevent and address harassment.

The new requirements include:

• Banning discrimination based on any social identity (i.e. race, ethnicity, nationality, age, religion/spirituality, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, physical or cognitive ability, language, beliefs, values, behavior patterns, or customs).
• Requirements for service delivery and comprehensive staff training to be language appropriate, gender appropriate (interventions that are sensitive to the diverse experiences of male, female, and transgender youth and consistent with the gender identity of participating youth), and culturally sensitive and respectful of the complex social identities of youth.

Confidentiality

• The new rule expands the requirements regarding confidentiality of information, treatment, conflict of interest and state protection for FYSB grantees.
• No records containing the identity of individual youth, including but not limited to lists of names, address- es, photographs, or records of evaluation of individuals served by a Runaway and Homeless Youth project, may be disclosed or transferred to any individual or to any public or private agency without informed consent of the youth AND the parent or legal guardian, when applicable. Exceptions exist for compiling statistical records or when a government agency is involved in the disposition of criminal charges against a youth.
• Research, evaluation, and statistical reports funded by grants provided under section 343 of the Act are allowed to be based on individual data, but only if data is de-identified from any individual youth.
• Youth served by a Runaway and Homeless Youth project have the right to review their records; to correct a record or file a statement of disagreement; and to be apprised of the individuals who have reviewed their records.
• Procedures shall be established for the training of project staff in the protection of these rights and for the secure storage of records.

Background Checks

The new rule expands the requirements of background checks for employees, consultants, contractors, and volunteers who have regular, unsupervised contact with individual youth, and for all adult occupants of host homes, to include:

• State or Tribal criminal history records (including fingerprint checks)
• FBI criminal history records (including fingerprint checks)
• Child abuse and neglect registry check
• Sex offender registry
• Any other registry check required under state or tribal law.
• As appropriate to job functions, it shall also include verification of educational credentials and employment experience, an examination of the individual's driving records (for those who will transport youth), and professional licensing records.

No later than October 1, 2017, grantees shall have plans, procedures, and standards for ensuring background checks on all employees, contractors, volunteers, and consultants who have regular and unsupervised private contact with youth served by the grantee, and on all adults who reside in or operate host homes. The plans, procedures, and standards must identify the background check findings that would disqualify an applicant from consideration for employment to provide services under a BCP, SOP or TLP grant.

Programs must document the justification for any hire where an arrest, pending criminal charge or conviction, is present.

Staff Training

Procedures shall be established for the training of project staff in the protection of youth rights related to confidentiality and for the secure storage of records.

All RHY grantees will participate in training as a condition of funding, as determined necessary by HHS. A long list of topical examples is provided, which include participation in or development of coordinated networks of private nonprofit agencies and/or public agencies to provide services.
Although it is not required for all staff and volunteers to be trained on all topics, RHY programs are expected to provide training for all staff and volunteers who work directly with youth training sufficient to meet the Core Competencies of Youth Workers.

These include:

• Professionalism (including, but not limited to, consistent and reliable job performance, awareness and use of professional ethics to guide practice);
• Applied Positive Youth Development approach (including, but not limited to, skills to develop a Positive Youth Development plan and identifying the client's strengths in order to best apply a Positive Youth Development framework);
• Cultural and human diversity (including, but not limited to, gaining knowledge and skills to meet the needs of clients of a different race, ethnicity, nationality, religion/spirituality, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation);
• Applied human development (including, but not limited to, understanding the developmental needs of those at risk and with special needs);
• Relationship and communication (including, but not limited to, working with clients in a collaborative manner); and
• Developmental practice methods (including, but not limited to, utilizing methods focused on genuine relation- ships, health and safety, intervention planning).

Performance Standards

The new rule discusses performance standards across all RHY programs, particularly in regards to tracking and reporting requirements.

The following is a breakdown by program:

• Street Outreach Program (SOP) grantees shall contact youth who are or who are at risk of homeless or runaway sta- tus on the streets in numbers that are reasonably attainable for the staff size of the project.
• Basic Center (BCP) and Transitional Living Program (TLP) grantees must measure goal attainment in the follow- ing core areas:
  • Social and Emotional Well-being;
  • Permanent Connections;
  • Education or Employment; and
  • Stable Housing.

BCP grantees are also required to report outcome data demonstrating:

• Trauma-informed Counseling Services (type of counseling received, participation rate and completion rate based on the youth’s service or treatment plan).
• Street-based services, home-based services, drug and/or alcohol abuse education and prevention services, and/ or testing for sexually transmitted diseases (completion rate for each service provided based on the youth's service or treatment plan).
• Safe and appropriate exits when leaving the program (the type of exit experienced by each youth)
• TLP grantees are required to report outcome data demonstrating:
• Educational advancement, job attainment skills or work activities (the type of education or job-related activities that each youth is engaged in).
• Health care referrals, including both services and insurance, as determined within their health care referral plan.
• Consistent pre-natal care, well-baby exams, and immunizations for the infant (Maternity Group Home only).
• Safe and appropriate exits when leaving the program (the type of exit experienced by each youth)

Each grantee is required to report data related to their outcomes, using existing data collection and reporting processes, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act and the Office of Management and Budget Control Numbers 0970-0406 and 0970-0123, and their successors.

Additionally, performance standards will be integrated into the grantmaking, monitoring, and evaluation processes of the Basic Center, Transitional Living, and Street Outreach Programs. Specific details about how performance standards will be considered, along with examples of performance documentation, will be provided in future funding opportunity announcements.

Service Coordination, Collaboration, and Partnership

In the new rule, RHY programs should perform outreach to locate runaway and homeless youth and to coordinate activities with other organizations serving the same or similar client populations, such as child welfare agencies, juvenile justice, systems, schools, and CoCs, as defined by HUD.
Grantees must also take steps to ensure that youth who are or should be under the legal jurisdiction of the juvenile justice or child welfare systems obtain and receive services from those systems until such time as they are released from the jurisdiction of those systems.

Additionally, grantees are required to work with child welfare and juvenile justice systems to ensure that youth who have run away are returned and those who should be under the legal jurisdiction of these systems receive services.

RHY programs must also coordinate their activities with the 24-hour National toll-free and Internet communication system (National Runaway Safeline).

Service Coordination (Basic Center And Transitional Living Grantees Only)
All Basic Center and Transitional Living Program plans to assist youth in obtaining appropriate educational services must include coordination with local employment and employment training coordinating agencies or programs, coordination with local college placement services, and providing access to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application.

Allowable Costs

• RHY program grants do not cover the capital costs of constructing new facilities or operating costs of existing community centers or other facilities that are used partially or incidentally for services to runaway or homeless youth clients, except to the extent justified by application of cost allocation methods accepted by HHS as reasonable and appropriate.
• RHY program grants do not cover any treatment or referral to treatment that aims to change someone's sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

Additional Requirements

• RHY grantees will develop and document plans that address steps to be taken in case of a local or national situation that poses risk to the health and safety of staff and youth. Emergency preparedness plans should, at a minimum, include routine preventative maintenance of facilities as well as preparedness, response, and recovery efforts. The plan should contain strategies for addressing evacuation, security, food, medical supplies, and notification of youths' families, as appropriate. In the event of an evacuation due to specific facility issues, such as a fire, loss of utilities, or mandatory evacuation by the local authorities, an alternative location needs to be designated and included in the plan. Grantees must immediately provide notification to their project officer and grants officer when evacuation plans are executed.
• All shelters operated by RHY program grantees must be licensed and grantees should determine that any shelters to which they regularly refer clients have evidence of current licensure, in states or localities with licensure requirements.
• All RHY grantees will utilize and integrate the principles of Positive Youth Development (PYD) into the operation of their projects.
• Basic Center and Transitional Living Program grantees will develop and implement an aftercare plan, covering at least 3 months, to stay in contact with youth who leave the program in order to ensure their ongoing safety and access to services