Background on Children's Aid and Family Service
In March 1910, the Home Finding Committee of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, with Mrs. Calvin Coolidge as Chair, met to discuss the establishment and management of a temporary home for children in need of such assistance. With an initial gift of $250 from Mrs. Arthur Curtis Jones, the first house was outfitted. Private contributions funded the Committee/Association's operations until 1921 when it became a member of the Community Chest Association of Northampton, Massachusetts.
The committee's conviction of the necessity of its becoming a child placing agency in addition to providing care in the Home, led to its resigning from the SPCC and to its being granted a charter in January 1911, as the Children's Home Association, serving Franklin and Hampshire counties. The first officers were: President, Mrs. William Ganon; Vice President, Mrs. A. L. Sessions; Secretary, Mrs. L.M. Scoville; and Treasurer, Miss Clara P. Bodman. The directors themselves sought foster homes for the children who were to be "placed out" until 1913, when a professional placing agent was hired with funds donated by one of the directors for the purpose.
Among those serving on the first Advisory Board were: L. Clark Seelye, F.W. Pitcher, John Skinner, Collins H. Gere, Robert L. Williston, and William E. Shannon.
The opening of the New England Home for Little Wanderers in Greenfield, Massachusetts in 1914 left the Association free to concentrate on Hampshire County. The spacious new Temporary Home at 425 Prospect Street, Northampton, purchased in 1915, made possible the provision of the increasingly sought-after services of the Association. As a result of this increased activity, the first trained Executive Secretary was hired in 1917. This same year brought the first financial drive and the appointment of Association Directors in every county town. In an effort to clarify the scope of its activities to include foster care, the Association changed its name in 1919 to the Children's Aid Association.
Until mid-century the nature of the CAA remained essentially unchanged, though greater emphasis came to be placed on foster care than on institutional care in the Home. The 1927 Annual Report indicates that the loss of the town of Enfield to the Quabbin Reservoir project meant to CAA the loss of many foster homes upon which the Association had relied. During this time, in addition to its usual operations, the CAA was called upon for aid in World War I, influenza epidemics, the Depression, the flood of 1936, the hurricane and flood of 1938, and World War II, when the US Committee for the Care of European Children asked for its assistance.
Through the years the CAA worked closely with the SPCC, maintained membership in the Child Welfare League of America, and became the Northampton representative for the National Association of Travelers Aid Societies. In addition, locally, the Association was a member of the Northampton Council of Social Agencies, the Community Chests of Amherst, Easthampton, Southampton, and Ware, and, later, the Hampshire United Way.
In 1954, the closing of the Temporary Home signaled another change in the CAA's focus -- from child-placing to counseling, which came to be reflected in the name adopted in 1962, The Children's Aid and Family Service Association. This change was accompanied by growth in an increasingly professionalized staff. In 1966, in a move indicative of its future course, CAFS contracted with the Northampton School Department to provide social work service in the Headstart Program and in the School Adjustment Counselor Program. New contracts in 1972 called for the provision of social work in the Hampshire County Chronic Disease Hospital and in private nursing homes, and a service for drug users. By 1976, CAFS had evolved into an agency providing both traditional child and family service and extensive mental health services.
