History
Child Saving Institute can trace its origins in the Omaha community to 1892 when Rev. A.W. Clark realized there was more need to help neglected, abandoned children then the men and women he intended to reform. Due to the hazards of pioneer life, epidemics, and poverty, many children were left in need of parental care. With the help of his wife, Sarah, Rev. Clark admitted the first child, a small seven-year-old girl, to the Boys and Girls Aid Society, which he soon changed to the Child Saving Institute. In 1911, with the help of a $25,000 pledge from George Joslyn, the entire Omaha community celebrated the agency’s move to a debt-free, state-of-the-art orphanage. For the next 65 years the agency provided services from that facility including a safe haven for abandoned children, adoption, and a home for unwed mothers.
While children remained the primary focus, as the decades passed the needs expanded and challenges loomed as orphanages across the country were closed. Services were added including a hot-line for parents, emergency short-term residential care for children whose families are in crisis, developmental childcare for low income working parents, treatment child care for children expelled from a typical childcare center, in-home services for families struggling to stay together, therapeutic and short term foster care, pregnancy counseling, and adoption for infants and older children.
The needs of today’s children and youth are as diverse and complex as the communities in the Omaha metro area. Today, Child Saving Institute operates 17 different services with 100+ employees. Child Saving Institute is committed to the tradition begun by A. W. Clark 117 years ago of “Responding to the cry of a child.”
