Covenant House and Covenant House Institute
In late 2007 the Center was invited to serve as the research partner for Covenant House New York and the Covenant House Institute. This agency provides crisis shelter and support services to over 70,000 runaway and homeless youth annually in New York City and in 20 other cities in the United States, Canada, and Central America. Since the partnership began, Ron Thompson of the Center faculty has conducted a Center-funded pilot study of homeless youth with histories of foster care placement, and he and Deborah Hasin are the recipients of a 2008 NIAAA-funded R21 grant to develop an alcohol treatment intervention for homeless youth with alcohol abuse. At the request of Covenant House partners, the Center's Trials Operation and Management Unit has worked with Covenant House staff to computerize crisis shelter admission forms, giving staff an opportunity to study aggregate data on clients in their programs to informadministrative decisions and future research efforts. This successful effort will soon be replicated in three other Covenant House sites nationwide, setting the stage for a system-wide data network. Mollie Berliss, Regional Director of Covenant House Institute participates in various Center activities. Bruce Henry, CEO of Covenant House Institute, serves as a Center Senior Advisor.
