Children’s Aid Society (CAS) provides support for children, youth, and their families in high-needs neighborhoods in New York, New York. It supports teachers, social workers, coaches, and health care providers who provide education, health care, emotional support, and stable families for children that live without one. ¹

History

Children’s Aid Society (CAS) was founded in 1853 during the first major wave of immigration to the United States. It operated lodging houses, fresh-air programs, and industrial schools in support of poor and orphaned children and pioneered the Orphan Train Movement, an experiment that placed orphaned children with farm families in the western United States. ^{2 3}

CAS deployed nurses and doctors into immigrant tenements and began offering nurseries for children of working women, dental clinics, and counseling and employment services for teenagers. Children’s Aid Society offered the first Head Start classes and began free breakfast and drug prevention programs during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the 1980s, CAS began the Carrera Teen Pregnancy Prevention program in Harlem. ³

Programs and Services

Community Schools

Children’s Aid operates 20 community schools in the Bronx, East Harlem, Washington Heights, and Staten Island areas of New York City. Each school places an emphasis on attendance, and provides health, social services, and academic services for children and adults, as well as sports, recreation and culture activities. ⁴

Preschool

Children’s Aid provides pre-kindergarten schooling to ensure that children in poverty are ready to start schooling. ¹

Academic and Social-Emotional Learning

CA provides after school and summer programs that seek the motivation children require to excel. It provides college admissions test prep, campus visits, internships, and teaching of proper work-place behavior. ⁵

Health and Nutrition

Children’s Aid provides health and nutrition programs that are intended to become family habits. Physical, dental, and behavioral health services are provided. ⁶

Family and Community

CAS partners with government and other nonprofits to establish and build community and family strength by advocating for funding and policy support. ⁷

CAS provided 16 scholarships for students, half of whom aspire to be health care professionals and the rest leaders in business, science, and government. ⁸

Children’s Aid Society claims the delivery of 2,300 food packages during the pandemic, vision and health screening for all students, and the placement of 59 children in permanent adoptive families in 2001. ⁹

Partners

CAS teamed with the left-of-center Carmel Hill Fund to aid a Harlem block on 118^th Street in New York, City to get crime off the block by bringing block buildings up to code and offering CAS social services to residents. ³

Children’s Aid Society works with Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BGCA), Children’s Home Society of America, Coalition for Community Schools, and NYT (New York Times) Neediest Cases Fund. ⁹

Advocacy

Children’s Aid Society has advocated for the funding of summer and after-school programs, urged the United States Congress to pass an economic relief package, and urged New York state government to invest in the funding of New York City Community Schools. ⁹

Funding

Individuals, business and foundations contribute heavily to Children’s Aid Society. Major Funding of over $500,000 was received in 2021 from, the Carson Family Charitable Trust, Coleman Family Ventures, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Robin Hood Foundation, Ballmer Group, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, NYT Neediest Cases Fund, the Taft Foundation, and the Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Foundation. ¹⁰

Grantmaking

The organization made grants totaling $3,728,403 in 2021, the largest of which consisted of $500,000 to Children’s Aid College Prep Charter School in the Bronx, New York. ^{11 12}

People

Phoebe Boyer is president and CEO of Children’s Aid Society. She was executive director at Robertson Foundation and executive director of the Tiger Foundation prior to joining CAS. ¹³

1. “About.” About | Children’s Aid. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/about.
2. “The Orphan Train Movement.” Children’s Aid. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/about/orphan-train-movement.
3. “A History of Innovation.” Children’s Aid. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/about/history-innovation.
4. “The Unique Impact of Community Schools.” Children’s Aid. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/impact/stories/unique-impact-community-schools.
5. “Academic and Social-Emotional Learning.” Academic and Social-Emotional Learning | Children’s Aid. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/programs/academic-social-emotional-learning.
6. “Health and Nutrition.” Health and Nutrition | Children’s Aid. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/programs/health-nutrition.
7. “Family and Community.” Family and Community | Children’s Aid. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/programs/family-community.
8. “16 College Scholarship Recipients.” 16 College Scholarship Recipients | Children’s Aid. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/impact/stories/16-college-scholarship-recipients.
9. “Impact.” Impact | Children’s Aid. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/impact.
10. “Children’s Aid Annual Report 2022.” issuu. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://issuu.com/casny/docs/annualreport_fy2022?fr=sMDQ4MjU4NzY1MzE.
11. “The Children’s Aid Society” Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990), 2021, Schedule I, Part II, Line (a)(5).
12. “The Children’s Aid Society” Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990), 2021, Part I, Line 8.
13. “Phoebe Boyer.” Children’s Aid. Accessed November 4, 2023. https://www.childrensaidnyc.org/about/phoebe-boyer.