Our Story
1849
Lucy Rider and Josiah S. Meyer are born, meet, marry and found the Chicago Training School (CTS), Chicago Deaconess Home and Wesley Hospital, collaborating with Jane Addams (Hull House) on settlement house strategies.
1894
Under Lucy Rider Meyer’s guidance as a founding Trustee, the organization’s first matron Deaconess Abigail Simonds begins the Methodist Deaconess Orphanage in Lake Bluff, Illinois with six children.
1895
The Orphanage’s benefactors, including Mr. N.W. Harris, founder of Harris Bank, Mr. James B. Hobbs, one-time president of the Chicago Board of Trade, and the Gustavas Swift Family, founders of the Chicago-based meat-packing empire, provide eight buildings and a beautiful campus for approximately 125 children.
1922
After retiring in 1917, Lucy Rider Meyer dies.
1946
The Orphanage is renamed the Lake Bluff Orphanage.
1955
Lake Bluff Orphanage receives a new name, Lake Bluff Children’s Home.
1969
Lake Bluff campus closes. The Agency is renamed Lake Bluff-Chicago Homes for Children (LBCHFC).
1980
Operations shift to four neighborhoods in Chicago and Round Lake.
1985
LBCHFC supports 27 foster homes and two multi-family group homes, and develops both school-focused and after-school programs.
1986
Comprehensive, community-based services begin. Agency receives Council on Accreditation certification and adopts the name of ChildServ.
1994
ChildServ celebrates 100 years of building better lives for impoverished children and families in the Chicago area.
38 different services are offered at 17 sites in Cook, DuPage and Lake counties.
2011
ChildServ proudly launches the Military and Veterans Family Program to provide counseling, educational and housing support for children, former and current military personnel and their spouses, helping to ease their transition into civilian life.
2013
Our home-based early childhood learning program expands into Kane County, helping kids ages 0-3 become ready for school and parents to become their child’s first teacher.
2015
ChildServ’s kindergarten-readiness program for 3-5-year-olds, HIPPY, is offered to children and families in Chicago’s south suburbs.
2016
Through a partnership with the Sheilah A. Doyle Foundation, counseling services are made available to youth whose family members have been victims of homicide.
2019
ChildServ’s Doula program in Lake County begins, providing support to prenatal women and new moms to make sure they have the best possible start to their lives together. The program expands in early 2020 into the city of Chicago.
2020
ChildServ starts offering mental health services to families in Lake County, so that they have the resources to heal from trauma and improve their social, emotional and family function.
The agency adopts an exciting new name and identity, Kids Above All, highlighting our belief in putting the safety, well-being and education of kids above everything else.
