Family-level factors to reintegrate street-involved children in low- and middle-income countries: A scoping review

Millions of children sleep on the streets every night, separated from family and reliable shelter. Research over the past decades has established risk factors and health outcomes of street-involved children and youth (SICY), which in turn have led to the development of multiple frameworks to guide policy and programming for working with SICY. However, research is also needed to define and evaluate effective interventions to help children caught in homelessness and separated from families. Through a review of implemented programs to reunite SICY with their families as well as relevant formative research on family-level risk factors for street migration, we explore family-level factors relevant to successful family reintegration of SICY. This scoping literature review is structured following a typical timeline of street-migration to reintegration (migration, rescue, reintegration, and follow-up) and uses a family capital framework to explore forms of capital (economic, social, cultural, and health) pertinent to family-level well-being. Associations between stages of street-migration and forms of capital are discussed as well as implications for not only the structure and design of interventions but also their evaluation. The current body of research on SICY, though lacking in evaluation, provides key findings to inform interventions to prevent street-migration and support family and community reintegration.