HEAR US (Homeless Education Action Research – Uniting Systems)

The HEAR US initiative (Homeless Education Action Research – Uniting Systems) is a two-prong action research strategy mobilizing young leaders from California high schools through Y-PLAN action research and university students through the PLUS leadership initiative to improve learning systems for K-12 youth facing homelessness and housing instability.

For 20 years, these two signature CC+S initiatives – Y-PLAN and PLUS – have moved young people beyond an awareness of the world’s many problems by offering them the tools and agency to craft their own solutions. Systematizing these models with a renewed focus on unhoused K-12 student policy, HEAR US deepens university-school-community partnerships.

This initiative partners young people with school districts, policy leaders and advocates to lift up young people’s vision for change with an expanded commitment to oversee their project’s implementation through continued advocacy and communications training. Project partners then identify opportunities to broaden the impact of young people’s ideas and elevate students as agents of change.