For our final episode of season 1, meet CEO of Covenant House International, Bill Bedrossian. Listen as he and Gioia discuss how his passion for ending youth homelessness has evolved and what’s driven him towards his current role, as he encourages listeners to engage in the work that each Covenant House site implements.

https://www.covenanthouse.org
Instagram: @Bill_Bedrossian

Prior to his role as CEO of Covenant House International, Bill served as the CEO of Covenant House California since 2014, leading the site to quadruple in size in those eight years. Bill’s passion for working with youth came from his parents, who have been foster parents for over 30 years and have adopted 8 of his 11 siblings through the child welfare system.

Bill began his career doing street outreach, residential care, and therapy in Chicago in the 90s. He then spent 13 years with the L.A. County Department of Child and Family Services, leaving in 2008 as the agency’s regional director of South County, where he helped reduce the number of children in out-of-home-care by close to 75%. In 2010, Bill became the executive director at Olive Crest’s Southern CA operations overseeing the agency’s foster care, adoption, group home, transitional living, mental health services, and family support operations.

“I am so humbled and honored to be able to continue to serve our youth in this new capacity,” said Bedrossian. “While we continue to develop and deepen our continuum of direct care for young people overcoming homelessness and trafficking, Covenant House is thinking a lot about how we can get further upstream so that we can change laws, policies, and practices that lead to youth and young families becoming homeless in the first place. We are thinking about how we can be part of increasing wages and developing careers for our youth that will enable them to live independently; as well as how to make an impact on affordable housing across the Americas, so that our youth can have places where they can actually afford to live. We have a lot of important work ahead of us, and I am so grateful to be coming into such a committed and skilled group of people."

Bedrossian has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Finance from Taylor University and a Masters of Social Work degree from Loyola University in Chicago; he also served as an adjunct professor in USC’s Graduate School of Social Work from 2012 to 2017. Since 2018, Bill has served on the Los Angeles County Commission of Children and Families to help provide oversight of the country’s largest child welfare system. With a shared passion for helping young people, Bill’s wife Jen is the founder and owner of UNCVRD Jewelry, which she started to raise awareness and funding for the fight against human trafficking in her hometown of Long Beach, CA and beyond. Bill enjoys coaching the baseball and basketball teams of his two young sons, Jarius and Julius, and rooting for any sports team from his hometown of Philadelphia.

Red Bean Baby talks about a lot of difficult, potentially triggering things. Take care of yourself and your mental health. Learn about more resources here on our website (https://www.covenanthousenola.org/issues/mental-health-wellness/).

Dr. Corine Brown, or Dr. C’Ma, a social worker and friend of Covenant House, can help you access more resources. Meet Dr. C’Ma here: https://themindbodyservicecollective.com/

• Learn more about Covenant House
  • https://www.covenanthousenola.org/
• Donate to Covenant House
  • https://www.covenanthousenola.org/donate/

Listener Advisory: This episodes contains conversation around Hurricane Katrina, including death, trauma and crisis. Please listen with caution and take care of yourself.

Ms. Ebonee Craighead, Tasia Stewart, Jane Helire, Shelita Lomax, Wyatt Hines, Gioia Barconey discuss Hurricane Katrina and its long lasting impacts from youth to adults. Sharing memories from 2005 that seem like they happened yesterday, the group engages in a vulnerable conversation on the enduring effects of Hurricane Katrina.

https://www.covenanthousenola.org/
Instagram: @covenanthousenola
Facebook: CovenantHouseNOLA
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/15374778
Twitter: CovenantHouseNO
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1PkDzhJGMEYKAB_B4iDSEw

Gioia Barconey bio: Gioia Barconey is a born and raised New Orleans native and ambitious business woman. In 2017 she stepped out on faith and started what we know today as Greezy NOLA Catering.

Growing up in uptown, New Orleans, Gioia was raised by her mother and grandfather. From ages 14-17, she had a tenuous relationship with her mother which led to difficult life challenges such as fighting, substance use, and criminal records. Not wanting to be a statistic of stereotypes of young, Black girls, Gioia opted to change her narrative and better her outcome.

In 2013 Gioia had her first child. In 2014 she gave birth to her second child. Having two small children back-to-back, Gioia was working endlessly to make sure that their needs were always met, but her living situation were tumultuous. In 2016 Gioia found herself homeless. Using all resources at her disposal, Gioia and her two babies made their way to Covenant House, where she learned a lot about herself and how to better cope with life as a parent.

In 2017 she gave birth to her third and final child. She contemplated daily what purpose she had in life and how to fulfill it. Gioia realized her passion for cooking, so Greezy NOLA Catering was born. Everything from marketing to building websites, Gioia is branding her business and continually working to market herself.

In 2023 Gioia began hosting the Red Bean Baby Podcast, speaking to people about issues that young people face, including homelessness and parenting. Helping people was always the plan and Gioia didn’t know it until her team of counselors at Covenant House encouraged her to see and utilize her natural skillset. Gioia has gone on to finish school in 2023 and is awaiting graduation. Her future plans include college, where she will receive a degree in communications and social work, furthering her help to be a voice for so many more young people. Her resilience and determination are what keeps her humbly on top of the game, and Gioia states that she’s not only playing for herself, but her children as well.

Today this thriving young woman is making a difference one person at a time.

Red Bean Baby talks about a lot of difficult, potentially triggering things. Take care of yourself and your mental health. Learn about more resources here on our website (https://www.covenanthousenola.org/issues/mental-health-wellness/).

Dr. Corine Brown, or Dr. C’Ma, a social worker and friend of Covenant House, can help you access more resources. Meet Dr. C’Ma here: https://themindbodyservicecollective.com/

• Learn more about Covenant House
  • https://www.covenanthousenola.org/
• Donate to Covenant House
  • https://www.covenanthousenola.org/donate/

Meet Ms. Tasia Stewart, a doula from the member-owned and -operated Birthmark Doula Collective. She explains just exactly what a doula is and does, and how their services impact the young pregnant people at Covenant House.

• https://www.birthmarkdoulas.com/
• Instagram: @birthmarkdoulas

Tasia G. Stewart Bio:
Tasia G.Stewart (she/her) is a mother of two beautiful children and four dogs. She is currently a member-owner of Birthmark Doula Collective, Doula, Perinatal health Advocate, and Certified Breastfeeding Specialist. After working at Children’s Hospital New Orleans for over fourteen years, she discovered the true care for infants and children began at the womb. She received her doula and placenta encapsulation certificates in 2018. Very shortly after in 2020 with a small cohort she became a Perinatal Health Advocate and breastfeeding specialist with Sister Midwife Productions. Her eagerness for growth in her maternal healthcare community prevailed as she became in 2021 the contracted Doula Coordinator for Covenant House and Maternal Pathways New Orleans.

Red Bean Baby talks about a lot of difficult, potentially triggering things. Take care of yourself and your mental health. Learn about more resources here on our website (https://www.covenanthousenola.org/issues/mental-health-wellness/).

Dr. Corine Brown, or Dr. C’Ma, a social worker and friend of Covenant House, can help you access more resources. Meet Dr. C’Ma here: https://themindbodyservicecollective.com/

• Learn more about Covenant House
  • https://www.covenanthousenola.org/
• Donate to Covenant House
  • https://www.covenanthousenola.org/donate/