Messengers Children's Center - Children's Home Society

General information

Children's Home Society (CHS) served as South Dakota's primary orphanage and adoption agency for nearly 70 years. In the 1960’s, as foster care became the preferred method of care for abused or neglected children, CHS refocused its efforts and developed residential treatment and education programs to serve children with severe emotional and behavioral needs, most often due to histories of abuse. Children’s Inn, founded in Sioux Falls in 1977 as one of the first 10 domestic violence shelters in the US, merged with CHS in 1998. Today, CHS continues to identify and meet the evolving needs of children and families.

Children’s Inn provides emergency shelter, crisis intervention, and advocacy to women and children who are victims of domestic violence, child abuse, and neglect. Children’s Inn is also licensed by the Department of Social Services as an emergency group home for children who are removed from their parents by law enforcement.

Accredited by the Joint Commission, Sioux Falls Children’s Home and Black Hills Children’s Home are the only residential treatment facilities in the state licensed by the Department of Social Services to serve children as young as age four. Most children have severe emotional or behavioral needs due to physical abuse, sexual abuse, or extreme neglect. Children in residential treatment are provided specialized education. A Day School program is provided for children who live with parents or guardians but whose emotional or behavioral needs prevent them from succeeding in public school.

CHS also offers vital components of the continuum of care, including therapeutic foster care, adoption services, and post-placement support services. Through a contract with SD Department of Social Services, Children's Home Society trains, qualifies, and conducts home studies for foster and adoptive families in SD. In addition, Children's Home Society recruits, trains, and licenses its own therapeutic foster families for children with moderate emotional/behavioral needs.

Children’s Home Child Advocacy Center, in Rapid City, provides expert forensic interviews and advocacy for children who are alleged victims of sexual or physical abuse, eliminating repeated interviews by multiple investigative parties. A medical examination is coordinated if necessary.

Bright Start, in Sioux Falls, provides nurse-home visitation services for first-time, at-risk mothers from pregnancy until the child is age 3 to help improve pregnancy outcomes, child health and development, and the family’s economic self-sufficiency.

CHS Prevention Initiative aims to stop the cycle of child maltreatment and interpersonal violence through education, consultation, advocacy, and awareness. CHS’s approach is multi-layered, addressing issues at each level of the socio-ecological model: individual, organizational, public policy, and society as a whole. CHS participates in many multi-disciplinary groups and is a lead agency on Jolene’s Law Task Force, among additional community-level efforts.

A common goal across all of CHS’s programs and services is to protect and strengthen children, individuals, and families through treatment, education, and prevention strategies that encourage recovery and healing if or when a traumatic life event occurs.