The mission of Children’s Home Society of South Dakota is to prevent, treat and heal trauma. From our founding in 1896 as the state’s first nonprofit social service agency, we have cared for thousands of children and families.
In 1893 William and Elizabeth Sherrard founded Children’s Home Society, the first nonprofit social services organization in of South Dakota, which had joined the Union just four years earlier. Responding to the issues of the day, the Sherrard opened an orphanage. It’s estimated that they cared for 400 children during the first two years. Some of the children they took in were truly orphans. Others were left by parents too poor to provide for them. Today services include residential treatment and schools, foster care and adoption, shelter for family safety, outpatient mental lhealth services and more.