Enhancing homeless education and faculty engagement following the launch of the Grand Challenge to End Homelessness: an evaluation study

The topic of the gap on homeless education in Social Work programs and the influence the Grand Challenge to End Homelessness has had on faculty engagement in enhancing homeless education, is explored in this study; within a large graduate school of social work. Full time faculty course leads and concentration chairs and vice-chairs, are the primary stakeholders of the study. The full-time faculty course leads and concentration chairs and vice-chairs participated in the study through the use of surveys and one on one interviews. The gap of homeless education in Social Work programs and the influence the Grand Challenge to End Homelessness has had on faculty engagement in enhancing homeless education from the perspective of faculty course leads and concentration chairs and co-chairs were analyzed following the gap analysis framework (Clark & Estes, 2016). A plan to implement the results of the study is guided by the New World Kirkpartick Model (Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick, 2016). Analysis of evidence from the survey questionnaire and one-on-one interviews revealed that while faculty had declarative, procedural, and meta-cognitive knowledge on homeless education, they lacked self-efficacy specific to the identifying learning objectives in homeless field placements and recognizing value in the Grand Challenge Ending Homelessness. Lastly, inadequate resources also served as barriers to effective implementation of enhancing curriculum on homeless education in support of the Grand Challenge to End Homelessness.