Student Research Ideas
If you are interested in learning more about homelessness and contributing new knowledge to the field, here are some ideas you may want to consider for an Honour’s or Master’s thesis.Â
- Students in higher education may experience mental health challenges that impact not only their education, but also their housing security. Conduct a document analysis of your own institution’s policies, paying particular attention to how they frame student mental wellness and housing security. For a more advanced study, identify more than one institution and conduct a comparative analysis. Based on your findings, create recommendations that can be shared with administrators at these academic institutions.
- Boredom is an under-recognized mental health challenge for people who are experiencing homelessness or have recently transitioned into housing. Conduct a scan of programs in your community that offer free or low-cost programming (these may include arts programs, libraries, and community centres for instance). Partner with one of these agencies to help them identify ways to make the program more accessible to people with lived experience of homelessness. Consider, for instance, whether there are ways to increase access to transportation, childcare, and/or subsidies to cover the cost of participation.
- Mindfulness is a practice derived from Zen Buddhism that has grown in popularity for treating adults and youth who are experiencing homelessness and living with mental illness. Conduct a scoping review of the academic literature from around the world to identify programs that are using this intervention. What are the best practices? What are some of the limitations of implementing this approach for people experiencing homelessness and living with mental illness?
