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Kevin M. Ryan

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Kevin M. Ryan
Kevin Ryan, a father, activist and child advocate, is president and CEO of Covenant House, one of the largest charities in the Americas. Covenant House helps more than 56,000 homeless and trafficked children and teenagers annually in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala. The charity’s international human rights work has been awarded the Conrad Hilton Humanitarian Award, the Olaf Palme Peace Prize, the United States Department of State Hero Citation, and, earlier this year, the Guatemala Hands of Peace Award.

During the 1990s, Ryan spent nearly a decade on the frontlines of Covenant House’s work with homeless and trafficked children on the streets of New York and New Jersey before he was appointed by the governor of New Jersey as the state’s first child advocate. In that role, he founded a public watchdog agency charged with monitoring conditions for children at risk of abuse and neglect. His work received national attention, including two appearances on “60 Minutes,” front-page stories in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, when he uncovered conditions of severe and illegal overcrowding in the state’s juvenile centers. He is a graduate of Catholic University (BA), Georgetown Law Center (JD) and NYU Law School (LLM), as well as a former Skadden Fellow and Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard Law School.

In 2006, he was nominated by the governor of New Jersey to lead a reform of the state’s foster care system as the state's first Commissioner of Children and Families. During his tenure, New Jersey set new state records for adoptions, net gains in foster families, and safety for children in foster care. He currently serves by appointment of federal courts as the monitor of reform efforts underway in Michigan and Oklahoma as a member of Public Catalyst.

He returned to the charity of his heart, Covenant House, as its fourth international president in 2009. In October 2012, John Wiley & Sons published Almost Home, a book by Ryan and former New York Times reporter Tina Kelley. Three years in the making, the book chronicles the extraordinary true journey of six formerly homeless teenagers in the United States and Canada as they overcome abuse, violence, and heartbreak to achieve their dreams.


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