4.8.10 New Family Center Opens While Celebrating The 145th Anniversary
The opening of the new Family Center in Mason Square has been scheduled for Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 3:30 p.m. at The Children's Study Home, 44 Sherman Street, Springfield, MA. The opening is exactly 145 years to the date of the incorporation of the Study Home. The Study Home is the oldest charitable organization in Springfield and was originally named The Springfield Home for Friendless Women and Children. It was renamed in the 1940's. Speaking at the event will be Gary Martinelli, Board President of The Children's Study Home and Mayor Dominic Sarno, Mayor City of Springfield, along with several staff from the Family Center.
The new Family Center has been designed to meet the changing needs of today's families while developing services and resources to address the stresses placed on parents and children including poverty, unemployment, violence, substance use, and difficulties keeping children safe and healthy. Several family oriented programs of the Study Home will now be administered out of the new center.
"The Family Center will provide a range of services to children and families in the community. Parent education, visitation programs and family resources are critical to building healthy families and hence, strengthening communities," explained Steve McCafferty, Executive Director of The Children's Study Home. "The center will bring together these services in a safe and comfortable setting where children and their parents can feel free to seek the help that they need," he added.
Mayor Domenic J Sarno has been very supportive the new Family Center which received a $50,000 CDBG grant from the City in 2009 to assist with renovations of the building. He stated, "With all the budget challenges we face, it is important to keep these front line services available to children and families which helps create positive impacts toward our Springfield community."
McCafferty stated that is only appropriate to open the new Family Center on the 145th year anniversary of the Study Home. Beginning in 1865 a group of volunteers started an ever-changing agency that has now devoted 145 years to the task of solving problems for troubled populations in our community. As the agency has grown and societal needs changed, the organization became more focused on its mission of `building healthy families." In the 1940s the agency became known as The Children's Study Home to reflect the diagnostic and treatment work they pioneered for children with emotional and behavioral problems.
From the agencies archives it is stated: "A "well built and commodious house" on Union Street was purchased. According to Article 2 of the 1865 Constitution, the "object of this institution shall be to provide a temporary home for friendless and destitute women and children; and to give them employment and instruction with the ultimate design of providing for them a more permanent situation, or fitting them to maintain themselves."