Our History
Historical & Service Overview
“All of our futures depend on answering a child’s cry for help today”
-- Peter M. Pufki, Retired President of CHSVA
Many things have changed in 107 years. One has not – children of all ages and backgrounds deserve permanent homes where they’ll be loved and nurtured. Children's Home Society of Virginia (CHSVA) began serving children who needed homes when the Virginia General Assembly chartered the organization on January 30, 1900.
The founders were distressed over the fact that children were being abandoned and were appalled at the conditions and care offered in orphanages. From the alleys of Richmond to country roads in Suffolk and trails in Appalachia, they discovered thousands of children in need of clothing, food, safe shelter, and certainly more secure futures. Mr. Williams J. Maybee, the first Executive Director of CHSVA, believed that “civilization would quite correctly be measured by their treatment of childhood”.
Today’s mission is to find permanent homes for all children and provide related counseling to birth and adoptive families. CHSVA is enthused to reflect on 107 years of experience but more inspired to serve the children and families of today with an exceptional offering of programs that no other adoption agency offers.
Who is Children's Home Society of Virginia?
- Virginia’s most experienced adoption agency – while CHSVA isn’t a “home for children” over 12,500 children have been placed into permanent homes by CHSVA
- A private, non-sectarian, non-profit, full-service adoption agency that serves the entire Commonwealth
- A service agency that never turns away a birth mother or child in need
How are Children's Home Society of Virginia’s Services Distinctive?
- Counseling is provided by trained social workers here in Virginia to anyone in need
- Birth mothers are met and counseled where they’re comfortable and whatever time is convenient for them
- Foster care is provided in private homes and is temporary
- Foster care provides time for birth parents to make a plan for their child’s future and visitation is encouraged
- Options are available for birth parents – temporary foster care until the birth parents’ situation is improved by counseling and other assistance, or they may be involved in planning for their child’s adoption
What are Some Examples of Services Provided?
- Children from infants to toddlers and teens and siblings groups have been placed into adoptive homes
- Birth mothers as young as 11 have received birth parent counseling
- Children as old as 16 have been placed into their first real home
- Along with healthy infants many of the children served come from fragile beginnings such as living with violence and abuse, or born with medical problems like spina bifida, cerebral palsy, or Downs syndrome
- Full adoption services at a flat-fee: Home study, placement, post-placement supervision, and counseling
- Heritage searches offered for adult adoptees