Children's Home & Aid Blog & News
Making the Holiday Season Brighter in Chicago
Children’s Home & Aid is so grateful for all of the support we received in our Chicago Metro Region this holiday season. Read below for all the details of our holiday events! In our Chicago Metro Region… Holiday Gift Drive – In Chicago, Children’s Home & Aid partnered with 39 companies and numerous individual donors […]
Making the Holiday Season Brighter in Southern Illinois
Children’s Home & Aid is so grateful for all of the support we received in our Southern Region this holiday season. Read below for all the details of our holiday events! In Metro East… Help for the Holidays – Over 300 families received gifts and monetary donations through our Help for the Holidays & 100 […]
Making the Holiday Season Brighter in Bloomington-Normal
Children’s Home & Aid is so grateful for all of the support we received in our Central Region this holiday season. Read below for all the details of our holiday events! In our Central Region… Stuff the Bus – The Bloomington-Normal community stepped up to make a significant difference in the lives of infants and […]
Making the Holiday Season Brighter in Rockford
Children’s Home & Aid is so grateful for all of the support we received in Rockford this holiday season. Read below for all the details of our holiday events! In our Northern Region… We are so grateful to our donors and supporters who contributed plenty of toys, clothes and other items for our Holiday Gift […]
Mentors Provide Help and Hope to Foster Parents
Update: Serenity has now been adopted by the Gatlins. Her adoption was finalized during the summer of 2019. When Mary and Todd Gatlin became foster parents to four-year-old Serenity, their dreams came true. The Gatlin’s have been through many ups and downs in their 22 months as foster parents to now six-year-old, Serenity. Supporting the […]
A Bright Holiday Season for Chicagoland Families and Kids – Thanks to You!
Thanks to our generous donors, we’re entering a new year and a new decade on a great foot! Children’s Home & Aid staff statewide were busy this December working with kids, families, and partners to ensure every child we serve had a bright holiday season. This year in our Metro region we partnered with 39 […]
Youth Budget Commission Inaugural Meeting – Investing in Illinois’s Youth
For over 135 years, Children’s Home & Aid has been dedicated to creating communities where children and families thrive. Here’s what we’ve learned from this work: Youth won’t succeed in their education if their living situation isn’t stable and they aren’t safe. If they aren’t healthy, their education is at risk. Without a solid education, […]
Spreading Holiday Cheer in Chicago
Season’s Greetings! Today we kick off a number of Children’s Home & Aid’s holiday events in the Chicagoland area. This year, our Holiday Gift Drive team has been working with 39 corporate partners to fill more than 1,200 holiday wish lists for children and families in our programs across the Chicago metro area. The Holiday […]
Happy GivingTuesday!
Today’s the Day…Happy #GivingTuesday! We are so excited GivingTuesday is here! Today is an international day of giving, now in its 7th year, celebrated each year on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. This global giving movement harnesses the generosity of people worldwide to support the causes they believe in and the communities in which they live. […]
Giving thanks on Thanksgiving, and every day
As we celebrate Thanksgiving at Children’s Home & Aid, we want to take a moment to thank all of the donors, volunteers, community partners and funders that work with us to make life better for children and families in Illinois. To the thousands of kind and generous individuals and foundations who make gifts from $1 […]
A Family for Cooper: From Foster to Adoption
November marks the start of National Adoption Awareness Month. Children’s Home & Aid believes that all vulnerable children, whatever their ages or circumstances, deserve safe, loving homes and the chance to love, to learn, to heal, to dream and to make their way in the world. While all adoption-related issues are important, the focus of […]
National Adoption Awareness Month – An Update on Pauline
November marks the start of National Adoption Awareness Month. Children’s Home & Aid believes that all vulnerable children, whatever their ages or circumstances, deserve safe, loving homes and the chance to love, to learn, to heal, to dream and to make their way in the world. Below is a story update from an earlier post […]
Helping Young Parents in Foster Care Become the Parents Their Children Need
Illinois Pregnant and Parenting Youth in Care (IPPYC) Home Visiting pilot works to break the cycle of abuse and neglect. The research is clear. Children whose parents are in foster care are at high risk of being abused and neglected and being removed from their parents and placed into foster care themselves. Think about why. […]
November is National Adoption Awareness Month
November marks the start of National Adoption Awareness Month. While all adoption-related issues are important, the focus of this month is the adoption of children currently in foster care. During this month we also celebrate National Adoption Day, observed in courthouses across the nation, where thousands of adoptions are finalized simultaneously. There are currently over […]
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month
Each year millions of children are exposed to violence in their homes. Exposure to violence, especially repeated over time, can interfere with children’s ability to think and learn and can disrupt the course of healthy physical, emotional, and intellectual development. Exposure to violence is also associated with increased use of health and mental health services […]
Men of the Roundtable: Engaging Fathers at the Mitzi Freidheim Englewood Child & Family Center
In the world of child welfare agencies and the services provided, specialized care and available resources are oftentimes targeted toward mothers. This can potentially lead to leaving fathers without the knowledge of how to become more involved in their child’s life. Derrick Dukes is the parent engagement coordinator at the Mitzi Freidheim Englewood Child & […]
The University of Chicago Crime Lab – Honoring 10 Years of Innovative Strategies
The University of Chicago Crime Lab recently celebrated 10 years of work spurring innovative crime reduction strategies. The results of Crime Lab and Education Lab work have developed into centerpieces of Chicago’s anti-violence strategies. One such success is Choose to Change (C2C), an intervention designed to help youth at risk of violence victimization and school disengagement. Developed […]
National Head Start Awareness Month
October marks National Head Start Awareness Month. Head Start programming at Children’s Home & Aid promotes school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children. Through Head Start, we offer educational, health, disability, mental health, nutrition and social services to children from 3 to 5 years of age. Early Childhood Care & Education […]
Englewood Community Mural Unveiling
Over the summer, children and youth, elected officials, Children’s Home & Aid staff and more came together with the Englewood community for a mural unveiling at Ogden Park. Over 40 youth involved in the One Summer Chicago program worked hard in preparation for this unveiling with a local artist. Ogden Park is home to a […]
Celebrating our Child Welfare Workers – Today and Every Day
As Child Welfare Worker Appreciation Week comes to a close, we believe our dedicated colleagues should be recognized every day. One week isn’t long enough to honor these teammates who are continually making strides in keeping children and families thriving. We’re proud of our staff who are doing whatever it takes to move the needle […]