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Tennessee Children's Home BRIEF HISTORY
In 1909, Tennessee Orphan
Home began in Columbia, Tennessee, to meet the needs of the three Scotten
children who were tragically orphaned. In 1935, the Home purchased the
campus of the Branham and Hughes Military Academy and moved to Spring
Hill, Tennessee.
Since 1909, over ten thousand children have been cared for at the
Home. As with many of the old
orphanages, the Home was designed as an institutional facility with
central dining, central laundry, dormitory living and a small farming
operation. The approach to
child care was to provide the basic physical needs of children and to
offer Christian instruction.
The 1980’s were a period of stable growth. We made many improvements in both
programs and services offered.
The number of children served grew throughout the decade. In late 1982, the name of the Home
was changed to Tennessee Children’s Home. The institutional approach was
replaced with family oriented group homes for the children. Dormitories were remodeled into
single family homes, with a maximum of eight children in each home. Central dining was replaced with
family meals in the group homes.
The family groups now individually carry on most activities like
home devotionals, church attendance, housekeeping, laundry, cooking and
cleanup.
In 1988, the Home increased the number of children served under
it’s direction merging with West Tennessee Children’s Home. Continued growth in our service
area occurred again in 2000 and 2001 through mergers with Happy Hills
Youth Ranch near Ashland City and East Tennessee Christian Services in
Knoxville. We have seen a change in the type of child needing our help in the past few years. In addition to orphaned children, we now receive abused and neglected youth that are struggling with their values and their relationships with other people. These problems may be emotional, social, behavioral, educational or even psychological. We have made a commitment to provide whatever our children may need, just like we would with our own children.
The results of these changes have been very encouraging! The children now feel more like
members of a “real family’.
Every child needs this. Consequently, they feel better about
themselves, and as their self-esteem improves, behavioral problems have
also declined.
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