Grantee Spotlight: The Covering House

For the young women who have survived the horrors of sex trafficking, recovery and support
goes beyond finding safety and freedom in escaping their abusers. Deprived of safe, supportive
childhood experiences and relationships, they find the care and compassion they need to heal
from their trauma and reclaim their lives at the community formed by The Covering House. A
key to the agency’s mission is “planting seeds” that will help their clients heal and lead lives that
embrace joy and possibility.

Established in 2009, the agency serves girls between the ages of 12 and 18 at a residential
program targeted to supporting them as they recover from the multiple traumas indicative of sex
trafficking: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depression, anxiety, disordered
substance use, and other issues associated with their experiences. The agency’s community
outreach programming serves survivors up to age 25. Many clients are referred by the
Department of Social Services, although others enter the program through specific paths
involving betrayals by adults from parents to strangers met online.

Since its founding, The Covering House has continued to expand its available beds. It runs
prevention and intervention programs and plans are in the works for expanding these into
collaborations with local school districts such as the St. Louis Public Schools.

“It’s a hard topic to talk about,” Rebecca Keeven, administrator of donor relations for The
Covering House, explains. “I think something that really gets the point across is that you can sell
a drug once. You can sell a person again. We’re an organization where the numbers don’t really
show the work. When our clients have had such specific trauma, it’s a slow healing process.
When they are with us at the residential home, it is a lot of therapeutic work, but we really try to
create a familial atmosphere, which is one of the things I think we do best. This is part of helping
them realize, again, that there are good people, people they can trust in, people that want to help
them. And not everybody wants something from them, but they want things for them.”

As part of its therapeutic, restorative model, The Covering House tailors its approach to each
client, from welcoming new residents with a “Welcome Home” meal of their favorite foods, to
hosting birthday celebrations, to customizing individual therapy plans. The agency runs a full,
in-house educational program for its clients, to help them recover from the learning loss that
more often than not accompanied their abuse.

“We do a lot of outings with our girls: taking them to the Zoo, to different parks, to museums,”
Keeven continues. “For a lot of them, they haven’t had those experiences. For them, to see what
life could look like and the possibilities, and to also just have fun, knowing that laughter and
play, those are all part of healing. It’s, in a way, reimbursing childhood. And that’s so powerful
because, for a lot of them, they have been trafficked during formative childhood years.”

Each client’s recovery varies, The Covering House staff explain, but the agency’s goal is always
to help her turn small successes into a path toward greater recovery.

“You’re planting seeds and you may not always see them, you know, where they grow,” Keeven
says. “But knowing that every little interaction is doing something that will stick with them, all
of those little things can go really far.”

With sustained support from funders like the Marillac Mission Fund, The Covering House
leverages the many contributions it receives from individuals to carry out its critical work.

“Trafficking is something easy to get passionate about because it is so horrible,” Keeven
observes. “What fills my cup is just knowing that there’s good things happening.”