A Promise Made
In 1893, Children’s Home Society of South Dakota (CHS), founded as an orphanage, made its first promise: To care for abused and neglected children and find permanent families for them.
We kept this promise, finding homes and loving families for thousands of children across the state—in cities and small towns, on ranches and farms.
A Promise to Children and Families
Today we enter a new era of providing services to vulnerable people across the state. We have learned that early intervention is the key to transformational success. Our new landscape of care includes:
- Children’s Residential Treatment and Schools
- Outpatient Mental Health Services for Children and Families with a focus on trauma and resilience
- Child Abuse Prevention, Training and Education
- Forensic Interviews and Advocacy
- Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Adoption Services
- Nurse-Family Visitation and Parents as Teachers
- Emergency Shelter and Crisis Intervention
The new Rapid City Campus of Children’s Home Society will follow our guiding principle of family stability. It will be a shining light of physical and emotional care for children and families.
Delivering on Our Promise
Renovation has begun on CHS’s new 100,000+ square-foot campus, which will offer ample space for all Black Hills services, allowing for:
- Offering all CHS services at the same location for efficiency for families and streamlining for the teams providing services.
- Easier access for children in residential care to specialized services they need (such as optometrists, audiologists, speech therapists, etc.)
- Providing Outpatient Mental Health Services, including psychiatry, therapy and case management
- Expanding Owen School to include a day school for children in Rapid City and other Black Hills communities
- Ability to more easily recruit and retain high-quality staff
- Fostering professional collaboration and a continuum of care for clients
- Eliminating overcrowding and providing space for program expansion
- Becoming fully ADA-compliant
- Ensuring facilities support new technologies
- Applying trauma-informed design principles
A Promise to the People of South Dakota
Children, families, professionals and partners will immediately feel welcome at our new 29-acre campus. Its natural setting, with green spaces, trees and vistas of the Black Hills, creates a calm and peaceful feeling.
All our programs and services will be located at our new campus, resulting in tremendous synergies and economies of scale. CHS will now be more convenient for families, staff, visiting care providers, and the multi-disciplinary team members.
With this remarkable facility, we are ready to continue adjusting to change, whatever the future brings.
A Closer Look
Sustainable and natural materials such as wood, stone and glass will transform the current facility into a warm and welcoming space of care, healing, and family renewal.
As design work progresses, features will be finalized. The following lists are preliminary.
Outdoors:
- State-of-the-art security systems
- Walking paths
- Playgrounds
- Gardens
- Benches and terraces
- Meditation spaces
- Outdoor recreation facilities
- Ample parking and lighting
Indoors:
- 45 beds for residential treatment
- 44 spots at Owen School reserved for day students from Rapid City and other area communities
- Library, art room and music rooms in the school
- Gym and recreational facilities
- Sensory rooms
- Conference and meeting rooms
- Full commercial kitchen and dining hall
- Artwork throughout the buildings
You Are Invited to Join Us!
The Promise Appeal is about people, not a place. The place–our new, transformed campus–supports people. We are all citizens of South Dakota. Some of us identify East, some West, but now is the time to step forward to support children and families that need our help.
The new Children’s Home campus will change the landscape of care for those most in need.
We all know a child or family that needs help. And, as South Dakotans we respond!
You may be contacted to support this important transformation of Children’s Home. We hope you’ll consider a generous gift. Then perhaps reach forward just a little more in your support. We can do this together. We truly are trailblazers!