Ellen Bassuk, M.D.
Founder
Ellen L. Bassuk, MD, Founder and Senior Technical Advisor, is an applied researcher, psychiatrist, and activist. She is founder and president of the Bassuk Center and former president and founder of The National Center on Family Homelessness. Dr. Bassuk is at the forefront of research and evaluation, program design, and service delivery to homeless children, families, and other vulnerable populations. She has done extensive research in the fields of homelessness, trauma, mental health, and substance use. Her research on the impact of trauma and co-occurring disorders in the lives of families experiencing homelessness has contributed to improving this national tragedy.
Dr. Bassuk and her colleagues designed the Worcester Family Research Study, a comprehensive longitudinal study of sheltered homeless and low-income housed families and their children—the first of its kind in the nation. She has since conducted multiple studies and systematic reviews on the effects of homelessness on the mental health of children and youth and their parents. Her work has set the standard of care in this area.
Most recently, she has addressed best practices in the field of homelessness, particularly focusing on trauma-informed care in shelters and other programs for people experiencing homelessness. As part of this effort, she and her colleagues developed the first brief validated tool—the TICOMETER—to measure the level of trauma-informed care in human service organizations and identify gaps in implementation. She has also focused on adverse childhood experiences (ACES) in children who are homeless and strategies for identifying high-risk preschoolers who are homeless.
Dr. Bassuk has focused on co-occurring disorders, particularly mental health issues, in homeless individuals. She served in key leadership roles for the National Resource Center on Homelessness and Mental Illness, the Coordinating Center for Collaborative Program for Homeless Families, and the ChronicHomelessness Initiative.
Dr. Bassuk is a board-certified psychiatrist. She graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine and Brandeis University and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Public Service from Northeastern University. She was an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School for more than 35 years. She also served as Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. She has written more than 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as many monographs and books.
Examples of Dr. Bassuk’s Work
- Addressing Housing Stability, a podcast episode with Ellen Bassuk, Regina Cannon, and Kristen Paquette (31:14 minutes)
- Housing Solutions
- Trauma-Informed Care
- TICOMETER, a scientifically validated instrument that measures the levels of trauma-informed care in health and human service organizations
- Organizational Trauma-Informed Care: Associations with Individual and Agency Factors by C4's Ellen L. Bassuk and Kristen Paquette as well as George J. Unick and Molly K. Richard was published in Psychological Services in 2019.
- Trauma-Informed Care for Street Involved Youth by C4's Ellen L. Bassuk as well as Jeff Olivet and Elizabeth K. Hopper was published in Mental Health & Addictions Interventions for Youth Experiencing Homelessness: Practical Strategies for Front-line Providers in January 2018.
- Assessment of Families Experiencing Homelessness: Analysis of Current Practice by C4’s Ellen L. Bassuk as well as Carmela J. DeCandia and Molly K. Richard was published in Child and Family Well-Being and Homelessness: Integrating Research into Practice and Policy in February 2017.
- Universal Design for Underserved Populations: Person-Centered, Recovery-Oriented and Trauma Informed by C4's Ellen L. Bassuk and Robert Sember as well as Rachel Latta, Sheela Raja, and Molly K. Richard was published in Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved in August 2017.
- Peer-Delivered Recovery Support Services for Addictions in the United States: A Systematic Review by C4's Ellen L. Bassuk, Justine Hanson, and R. Neil Greene as well as Alexandre Laudet and Molly K. Richard was published in Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment in January 2016.
- Developing an Instrument to Measure Organizational Trauma-Informed Care in Human Services: The TICOMETER by C4's Ellen L. Bassuk and Kristen Paquette as well as George J. Unick and Molly K. Richard was published in the Psychology of Violence in January 2016.
- The Prevalence of Mental Illness in Homeless Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis by C4's Ellen L. Bassuk as well as Alexander Tsertsvadze and Molly K. Richard was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry in February 2015.