Embracing Street Culture: Fitting Health Care into the Lives of Street Youth

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe a unique model for the provision of comprehensive primary health care for homeless youth in Seattle, Washington. Through the description of our program, we argue for the use of youth-centric instead of youth-friendly programs. This means a change from using the friendly health program as the central focus to having the young people be the starting point and adapting the health service to meet their needs. We describe how our model of care optimizes chances for homeless youth to establish positive connections with caring adults. We also show how homeless youth have their own street culture, which is of primary importance to them and which has a powerful impact on how they use and view health care.