Adriano BattistaResearch Hub
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Youth homelessness prevention through education and early intervention

Youth Homelessness Prevention Starts Before Crisis

A research-informed resource hub for educators, schools, communities, and youth-serving partners working to recognize housing precarity earlier and strengthen school-community prevention systems.

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Research profile

Academic researcher + public educator.

Adriano Battista is a doctoral researcher, educator, and published author specializing in youth homelessness prevention, upstream prevention, teacher education, education policy, and school-based early intervention systems. His research explores how schools can function as prevention spaces by helping educators recognize and respond to poverty, trauma, housing instability, and social vulnerability before youth homelessness becomes visible as crisis.

His work brings together education policy, critical pedagogy, lived and professional experience, and prevention-focused school systems, including the Community of Schools and Services model and upstream prevention approaches. Adriano is also involved in Quebec prevention work through Les Visages de la Prévention and emerging school-community initiatives focused on youth homelessness awareness, prevention education, and training for school staff.

Research

Doctoral research and prevention-focused scholarship

Doctoral researcher in Concordia University’s Department of Education, focusing on youth homelessness prevention, upstream intervention, teacher education, and school-based early identification.

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Education

Teacher education and school-based prevention

Director of Education at HOPE Youth Education and Physical and Health Education teacher in Montréal, working with students facing learning difficulties, language barriers, and social vulnerability.

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Prevention Leadership

Quebec prevention coalition work

Member of Les Visages de la Prévention, a Quebec-wide prevention coalition bringing together community organizations, researchers, prevention leaders, and people with lived experience.

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School-Community Initiatives

HOPE Youth Education

Emerging collaborative prevention and awareness work with school-board, community, and private-sector partners focused on youth homelessness awareness, prevention education, and staff training.

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Choose your pathway

Choose the pathway that matches your role.

Academics and Researchers

Start with the research record

Review the IJOH article, graduate thesis, prevention frameworks, and citation-ready publications.

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Educators and School Staff

Start with schools as prevention spaces

Explore early warning signs, trauma-informed teacher education, and referral pathways that do not ask teachers to work alone.

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Policymakers and Funders

Start with systems change

Compare prevention models and policy levers that move responses earlier than shelter entry or visible crisis.

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Community Partners

Start with collaboration

Connect school-community prevention to lived experience research, youth-serving organizations, and implementation partnerships.

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Prevention cluster

Four entry points into youth homelessness prevention.

Focus area

Youth homelessness prevention in schools

Schools as spaces for early recognition, relational care, and referral before crisis becomes visible.

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Focus area

Awareness building for youth

Youth-friendly resources, awareness videos, teacher resources, and pathways to help that do not rely on shame or crisis.

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Focus area

Pre-service teacher training

Teacher education research focused on poverty, trauma, housing instability, and youth homelessness.

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Focus area

Educational policy

Policy analysis, school-community infrastructure, and prevention frameworks for Quebec and beyond.

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In plain sight

The data points toward schools, care systems, and early intervention.

These figures are presented as decision-support signals. Each statistic links back to a cited source so readers can examine the evidence directly.

20%

Youth aged 13 to 24 account for just under 20% of emergency-shelter users in Canada. (ESDC, 2017)

40,000+

More than 40,000 young people are estimated to experience homelessness in Canada over the course of a year. (Homeless Hub, n.d.)

46%

Nearly half of chronically homeless adults first experienced homelessness before turning 25. (Homeless Hub, 2025)

Featured publication

Schools as Sites of Both Harm and Potential

Academic Publication

Preventing the Root Causes of Youth Homelessness Through Cultural and Critical Pedagogies

Peer-reviewed article framing schools as sites of harm and potential, emphasizing upstream prevention, institutional misrecognition, lived experience as knowledge, and teacher education.

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Research to practice

Public scholarship that helps people decide where to start.

What Works

Compare prevention models

COSS, Reconnect, Upstream, Family and Natural Supports, HF4Y, McKinney-Vento, Washington SB 6560, Duty to Assist, breakfast programs, and critical pedagogy.

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Toolkit

Freirean Teacher Toolkit

Classroom-ready strategies, lesson plans, trauma-informed pedagogy, and social justice teaching tools.

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Need Help?

Youth-friendly resources

Easy-to-scan support cards with phone numbers, links, and QR codes for Quebec crisis and community resources.

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