Children's Aid

Children's Aid Society

File:Childrensaidsocietyseal.jpeg
Formation	1853 (162 years old)
Founder	Charles Loring Brace (Yale 1846)
Founded at	New York, New York, U.S.
Revenue	$140.2 million (2014) $137.3 million (2013)
Expenses	$124 million (2014) $121.7 million (2013)
Website	childrensaidsociety.org
Remarks	Firsts: Orphan Train parent-teacher associations free school lunch programs free dental clinics for children day schools for handicapped children kindergarten in the United States industrial schools foster homes “fresh air” vacations

Office in the South Bronx

CAS Community School in Washington Heights

See also Children's Aid Society (Canada).

Children’s Aid Society (CAS) is a private, child welfare organization based in New York City, established in 1853 as the Orphan Train originator, by Yale graduate, Charles Loring Brace. CAS is one of the oldest and largest child welfare agencies in the United States, with an annual budget of over $100 million, 45 sites, and over 1,200 full-time employees.

It serves tens of thousands of New York City children per year by providing comprehensive services of adoption and foster care, after-school and weekend programs, arts, camps, early childhood education, events, family support, medical, mental health, and dental, juvenile justice, legal advocacy, special initiatives, sports and recreation, and youth development programs.

History

In 1853, Children's Aid Society was founded by Yale graduate and philanthropist, Charles Loring Brace, to ensure the physical and emotional well-being of children and families, and provide each child with the support and opportunities needed to become a happy, healthy, and productive adult. Brace, a minister by training, was appalled by the thousands of abandoned, abused, and orphaned children living in the slums and on the streets of New York at that time. The only option available to such street children at that time was begging, prostitution, petty thievery, and gang membership, or commitment to jails, almshouses, and orphanages.

Brace believed that institutional care stunted and destroyed children. In his view, only work, education, and a strong family life could help them develop into self-reliant citizens. Brace knew that American pioneers could use help settling the American West, so he arranged to send the orphaned children to pioneer families who needed them. This became known as the Orphan Train Movement.

The children, who were encouraged to break completely with the past, would typically arrive in a town where community leaders had assembled interested townspeople. The townspeople would then inspect the children and choose the ones they wanted. The program was controversial, as some abolitionists viewed it as a form of slavery, while some pro-slavery advocates saw it part of the abolitionist movement, since the labor provided by the children made slaves unnecessary. Some Catholics viewed the program as anti-Catholic, as a significant percentage of poor children in Manhattan were Irish Catholic, and once transported into the interior of the country they would be raised outside their faith. In response, the Archdiocese of New York upgraded their own child-welfare programs, improving the parochial school system, building more Catholic orphanages, and creating a 114-acre (46-hectare) training center on farmland in the Bronx, which they called the Catholic Protectory.

From 1854 to the last train in 1929, more than 200,000 children rode the "Orphan Train" to new lives. The Orphan Train Heritage Society maintains an archive of riders' stories. The National Orphan Train Museum in Concordia, Kansas maintains records and also houses a research facility.

Development

Other child welfare innovations

Since originating the Orphan Train, CAS has founded a series of child welfare innovations that have since become commonplace, such as:

• some of the first industrial schools
• the first parent-teacher associations
• the first free school lunch programs
• the first free dental clinics for children
• the first day schools for handicapped children
• the first kindergarten in the United States
• the first foster homes
• the first “fresh air” vacations, in which urban children visit host families in the country for the summer.

In the 1980s CAS created the first family court diversion programs, where social workers meet with out-of-control children and their families in an attempt to find out of court solutions.

In 1992, CAS created the first "community school", a partnership with the New York City Department of Education where a full array of health, mental and after-school, weekend and summer programs are available to students at school. The Technical Assistance Center has helped visitors from all over the United States and more than 40 foreign countries learn how to apply "community school" concepts in their schools.

In 2009, it was honored with a Village Award from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation for its Philip Coltoff Center in Greenwich Village (since razed for new residential development). In 2012, The Children's Aid Society was rated 4/4 stars by charities rating organization Charity Navigator for a record breaking 12th consecutive year.

In 2014, the Children's Aid Society's board of trustees appointed Phoebe C. Boyer as its eleventh President and CEO. She is the first female to lead the society, since Charles Loring Brace founded Children's Aid.

In popular culture

• Kate Manning's My Notorious Life (2014) predominantly features early 1800's orphans as main characters, who get selected on the street amongst children who must prostitute themselves for food, by Charles Loring Brace for the Orphan Train, and eventually become Lake Shore Drive (Chicago) and Fifth Avenue residents.
• The book "Last Train Home, an orphan train story" by Renée Wendinger, is a historical novella describing the methods by which children were placed West by the Children’s Aid Society and the New York Foundling following the lives of two children of the train.ISBN 978-0-9913603-1-4
• The book "Extra! Extra! The Orphan Trains and Newsboys of New York" by Renée Wendinger, is an unabridged nonfiction resource book and pictorial history about the orphan trains. ISBN 978-0-615-29755-2
• The song by Utah Phillips called "Orphan Train" has been performed by numerous modern bluegrass singers.
• The book Gratefully Yours describes a nine-year-old girl's feelings about her new family who adopt her from the orphan train.
• There is a ballet entitled Orphan Train presented by Covenant Ballet Theatre of Brooklyn, which tells the story of Brace and shows stories of orphans on the train. It is choreographed by Marla Hirokawa.
• Authors Al and Joanna Lacy have written an Orphan Trains Trilogy, depicting the lives of fictional orphans.
• The ballad "Rider On An Orphan Train", written by David Massengill, describes the inevitable tragedy of the separation of siblings in spite of the efforts to keep brothers and sisters together.
• The book Train to Somewhere by Eve Bunting describes a fictional account of a girl's journey on the Orphan Train.

See also

• Timeline of children's rights in the United States

External links

• Official website