Children's Home and Aid Society of Illinois records

Biography/Profile

The Children's Home and Aid Society of Illinois is a private charitable organization that has worked as a partner with the government in caring for wards of the state. Since its creation in the 1880s, it has offered adoption, foster-care, boarding, and counseling services to thousands of children and families and has sponsored other services to meet the needs of the state's children.

The society had its origins in the American Educational Aid Association, created by Reverend Martin Van Buren Van Arsdale in 1883. Its mission was to "co-operate with young women and homeless and dependent girls of special promise in fitting themselves for the requirements of life, and to find homes for homeless and dependent children." ([Corporate Certificate]) The association grew quickly, and finding and placing children of both genders with families soon became its most important role. Van Arsdale moved its headquarters from Bloomington, Illinois to Chicago in 1884, and under his direction it got its first corporate charter from the state in 1885. In 1892, the association changed its name to the Children's Home Society of Illinois. Aspiring to be a national organization, it changed its name again in 1895 to the National Children's Home Society, and yet again to the National Children's Home and Welfare Association in 1918. The national organization quickly became a loose federation of autonomous state-level auxiliaries, eventually claiming 36 such auxiliaries.

It was as an auxiliary that the present-day Children's Home and Aid Society of Illinois came into existence. In 1897, it took out its corporate charter under that name, having merged with the Children's Aid Society, itself a Chicago-based offshoot of the original Home. From then onward, the society operated independently.

In the following decades, the Children's Home and Aid Society became a partner with the state government in drafting and implementing legislation designed to help children. In 1899, its general superintendent, Dr. Hastings Hart (served 1898-1909), helped write the Illinois Juvenile Court Act. This act set up one of the first systems of juvenile courts in the United States and charged the organization with caring for those children whom the court declared wards of the state. Officials of the society collaborated with lawmakers in drafting other laws that affected its mission. One example was the Mothers' Pension Act of 1911 and subsequent amendments. This law eased some of the burdens on the society by granting money to enable mothers to take care of their own children without availing themselves of the society's services. (Flint, p. 9) Another example is the 1943 Illinois Aid to Dependent Children Act. This law, drafted with the help of the society's general superintendent, Mabbett K. Reckord (served 1938-1946), implemented a federal mandate to extend social security benefits to children. (Flint, p. 10)

While a partner with the state government, the Children's Home and Aid Society also acted as a private charitable institution. It offered assistance to families who lacked the resources to care for their children. It helped them find temporary free foster care for their children or helped them form adoption plans with new families. It also accepted children into temporary boarding homes with the goal of eventually reconnecting them with their parents. Finally, it cooperated with other likeminded organizations, such as Big Brothers and Big Sisters and the Infant Welfare Society, to expand the range of services beyond boarding houses and free foster care.

The directors of the society repeatedly modified its structure and operations to accommodate new demands and new approaches. It evolved from an older approach that had emphasized placing children outside their own families to a newer approach that favored keeping children in their own homes whenever possible. This change was evident as early as 1902, when General Superintendent Hart created two departments, the "Home Department," which oversaw the society's erstwhile home and foster-care placement, and the "Aid Society," which placed children in temporary boarding homes with the goal of ultimately reconnecting them with their families. (Thurston, p. 157) In the early 1910s, it opened the Mary A. Judy Industrial School, which housed "older girls who were not doing well in free foster homes." (Thurston, p 156) It gradually ended its reliance on volunteers, replacing them with a salaried and professionally trained staff charged with investigating each dependent child's individual circumstances. In the 1920s, Superintendent Clarence V. Williams (1921-1937), organized the society's five geographical divisions and created the Cook County Free Home Division, the Cook County Boarding Home Division, the Northern Illinois Division, the Central Illinois Division, and the Southern Illinois Division. (Flint, p. 10)

In the 1940s and 1950s, the society adopted what it later called a "holistic approach" to dependent child care. Superintendent Mabbett K. Reckord, argued that the society must see after its charges' emotional and mental health needs as well as their physical ones. He hired a child psychiatrist in 1939. In the 1950s, the society hired more mental health professionals, including "clinical psychologists, and a part time educational therapist." (Flint, p. 10-11) The society experimented with new ways to help emotionally disturbed children through such programs as the Children's Home in Evanston and a number of "special service foster homes." (Flint, p. 11) Reckord and his successors also hired more staff and reduced the number of cases per case worker in an effort to give each child as much individual attention as possible. (Flint, p. 10)

In the 1960s and 1970s, the society further experimented with new programs. It opened two homes to care for teenaged children: the Amy Waller Brewer House for teenage girls in 1960 and the Chauncey and Marion Deering McCormick House for boys in 1961. (Flint, p. 15) It focused more of its attention on the black community. Examples were its "Homes Now" adoption project, its Black Foster Care Project, and an educational program for new mothers offered with the help of the Black Methodists for Church Renewal and the St. James United Methodist Church in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood. The society's "Maternity Services Unit" created a program for high school students, which furnished "information on practical nursing, birth control, child care, vocations, (and) use of community resources." (Flint, p. 16-7) In 1972, the society's "Aunt Martha" program provided a safe space for runaway children. (Flint, 17-8)

By the time it celebrated its centennial in 1983, the Children's Home and Aid Society of Illinois had become "the largest private, non-profit, non-sectarian child welfare agency in the Midwest." ("News and Views," July 1983, p. 7) It benefited from state funding, but got most of its income from local-level fundraising auxiliaries and from private donations through such initiatives as its "Sponsor Parent" program. ("News and Views," July 1983, p. 7; "News and Views," April 1984, p. 7) Over the next thirty years, the society continued to advocate for the needs of dependent children in Illinois and continued to come up with new ways to help its clients. Examples were its developmental day care program in East St. Louis to combat infant mortality ("News and Views," August 1988, p. 1), its Community Treatment Homes project to bring back emotionally disturbed teens sent out of state for treatment, ("News and Views," February 1991, p. 1), and its "Boys to Men" male mentoring program at the Englewood Family Center in Chicago. ("Legacy of Care," winter 1997, p. 1, 5) By 2012, the society served an average of 40,000 children each year and offered as many as 70 adoption, foster care, and other counseling services in 40 counties in Illinois.

SOURCES CONSULTED AND CITED

"Certificate of Change of Name of the American Educational Aid Association," 1892. Series I, Sub-series B, Box 5, Folder 47. Children's Home and Aid Society records. University of Illinois at Chicago.

Children's Home and Aid Society. "Celebrating 125 Years Serving Children and Families in Need" (pdf document). Accessed March 12, 2012. www.childrenshomeandaid.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Document.Doc?id=53

Children's Home and Aid Society. "Children's Home + Aid." Accessed April 10, 2012. www.childrenshomeandaid.org

[Corporate Certificate], 1885. Series I, Sub-series B, Box 5, Folder 47. Children's Home and Aid Society records. University of Illinois at Chicago.

Flint, Marjorie and Betty Papangelis. "History of the Illinois children's Home and Aid Society, 1883-1975." Paper found in collection file. 1975.

"A Legacy of Care" (newsletter of the Children's Home and Aid Society of Illinois), various dates. Series V, Box 77, Folder 1094. Children's Home and Aid Society records. University of Illinois at Chicago.

"News and Views" (newsletter of the Children's Home and Aid Society of Illinois), various dates. Series V, Box 77, Folder 1098. Children's Home and Aid Society records. University of Illinois at Chicago.

Tanenhaus, David S. "Growing Up Dependent: Family Preservation in Early Twentieth-Century Chicago" Law and History Review 19, 3 (Autumn 2001): 547-82.

Thurston, Henry W. The Dependent Child: A Story of Changing Aims and Methods in the Care of Dependent Children. New York: Columbia University Press, 1930.