|
Below are the most commonly asked
questions about Cunningham Children's Home, the clients
we serve, our treatment programs and our history. Let
us know if there are other questions you have. Click
here to contact us. We look forward to hearing from
you!
Why
do children and youth come to Cunningham Children's
Home for treatment?
How old are the children
and youth?
How many children live at
Cunningham Children's Home?
Where did the children
and youth live before they came to Cunningham Children's
Home?
How do you determine if
a child should come to Cunningham?
Are children ever turned
away from Cunningham Children's Home? Is there a waiting
list?
What kind of residential
treatment services are offered at Cunningham Children's
Home?
How long do the
children stay at Cunningham Children's Home?
Does Cunningham also
work with the families of the children?
Are children at Cunningham
eligible for adoption?
Are some of the children
addicted to drugs or alcohol?
Who decides when a child is
ready for public school?
Are college scholarships
available?
How long has Cunningham been a
home for children?
Didn't Cunningham used to
be an orphanage?
Do you have house parents?
Is it difficult to find qualified
staff and what do you look for in a potential staff
member?
Is Cunningham affiliated
with The United Methodist Church?
How is Cunningham funded?
Why
do children and youth come to Cunningham Children's
Home for treatment?
Cunningham kids are dealing with a wide range of emotional
and behavioral problems, special education needs and
learning challenges. While it is impossible to put our
kids into categories, some of them are experiencing
post traumatic stress disorder and psychological problems
because of severe abuse and neglect. This can result
in attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity disorder.
And some of the kids have special education needs because
of neurological difficulties caused by birth trauma,
autism, Tourettes syndrome or other illnesses.
If a child's problems are untreated,
they will compound. Before coming to Cunningham, many
kids were unsuccessfully placed in foster home after
foster home creating a lack of stability. Public schools
often can't provide the special service required by
children with severe emotional and behavioral disorders.
Because these kids require an intense therapeutic educational
environment they fall behind in their education. Some
kids that are hurting become angry and frustrated. They
may function below their biological age or have the
emotional behavior of a younger child. It is not uncommon
for us to deal with teenagers who throw tantrums.
(Return to top
of page)
How
old are the children and youth?
Cunningham Children's Home serves
children and youth age 6 to 21 years old. On our main
campus, our four home-like cottages house boys and girls,
age 8 to 18 years old. Cunningham also has two Community
Group Homes. The Kendall Gill Boys Group Home serves
8 boys ages 14 to 18 and the Girls Group Home serves
8 girls ages 14 to 18.
The Transitional Living House (TL
House) serves males age 17 1/2 to 21 years old. The
Supervised Independent Living Program (SILP) includes
young adults (male and female) age 171/2 through their
21st birthday. The Pregnant and Parenting Teen Program
(PPT) provides independent living services for single
mothers age 17 to 21 years old living with their child(ren).
(Return to top
of page)
How
many children live at Cunningham Children's Home?
The four residential cottages on the
main campus house 8 to 10 youth in each cottage. The
Kendall Gill Boys Group Home houses 8 teenage boys and
the Girls Group Home is home to 8 teenage girls.
The Transitional Living House (TL
House) can serve up to 5 males. The
Supervised Independent Living Program (SILP) can accommodate
15 young adults and the Pregnant and Parenting Teen
Program (PPT) can serve up to 12 single mothers and
their children.
Fifty-eight students attend CIRCLE
Academy, located on our main campus, but do not live
at Cunningham.
(Return to top
of page)
Where
did the children and youth live before they came to
Cunningham Children's Home?
Most of the children and youth at
Cunningham are referred by the Illinois Department of
Children and Family Services (DCFS). These are children
who have been removed from their parents' custody and
for whom the state is acting as legal guardian. Children
are also referred to Cunningham by the Illinois Department
of Human Services, the Illinois Department of Corrections,
school districts, private physicians or social workers.
(Return to top
of page)
How
do you determine if a child should come to Cunningham?
Once a child has been referred, that child is interviewed
by our Intake Coordinator. Our program is behaviorally
based and centers on building relationships. If a child
is not able to commit to the incentive program then
he or she may not do well at Cunningham. We want success
for all our children so we try to make sure that Cunningham
is right for the individual child not that the child
is right for Cunningham.
(Return to top
of page)
Are
children ever turned away from Cunningham Children's
Home? Is there a waiting list?
There are 20,000 children in the state
of Illinois who need placement outside of their natural
home. Many of them are in temporary shelters so from
that respect, there is always a waiting list. But, we
are not always at full capacity and we do not accept
every child that is referred to us.
The reason why we are not always at
full capacity is that some children leave unexpectedly
because of a change in their situation, a court order
or severe behavior problems that are a threat to the
other children we are serving. If a discharge is "unplanned"
it may take the in-take coordinator time to fill that
bed. Also, depending on the dynamics of the children
in a given cottage, staff may choose to work with 8
or 9 children instead of 10 in order to better meet
the needs of those children. Normally we average about
90 to 95% capacity for the year.
The reason why we do not accept every
child that is referred to us is that our program is
not "right" for every child. We have to make
sure we can meet the needs of the child before we accept
that child. If a child needs more intense or specialized
therapy and/or a more structured environment than Cunningham,
then we would not accept that child.
(Return to top
of page)
What
kind of treatment does Cunningham Children's Home offer
for children and youth?
Cunningham provides therapeutic interventions
for children and youth. These interventions include
family therapy, play therapy and individual psychotherapy
by clinically trained staff working under the supervision
of licensed mental health professionals.
Cunningham also offers Special Therapies
which provides therapeutic recreation, music, and art.
If desired, children and youth may participate in Spiritual
Services to explore their spirituality and engage in
music and prayer sessions with the Cunningham Chaplain.
Special Education is provided at Gerber School, Cunningham's
on-grounds school. Gerber provides special education
services for main campus and group home residents. Residential
students may transition back to public school on a part-time
basis with a goal of full-time public school attendance.
(Return to top
of page)
How
long do the children stay at Cunningham Children's Home?
The average stay is twelve to eighteen
months. Our goal is to help a child achieve predetermined
behavior goals that will allow him or her to live in
a less structured environment. This typically takes
about 12 to 18 months, but many of our children stay
longer. This happens when Cunningham continues to be
the best placement for the child. Take for example Chris
who has been at Cunningham for 5 years. Chris lived
in our main campus program and is now in our boys group
home. His 5 years at Cunningham have been the most stable
in his life. Before that he moved from foster home to
foster home never really settling in anywhere so his
case worker felt the best thing for him was to stay
in the program at CCH. He will turn 18 this spring and
will graduate from high school. His mother has become
involved in his life within the last year and is working
to rebuild her relationship with her son. Chris hopes
to move closer to his mother after graduation and to
work and attend college. Cunningham will still be close
by to provide independent living resources if Chris
needs them.
(Return to top
of page)
Does
Cunningham also work with the families of the children?
When the child or youth and their
family are ready for it, Cunningham does provide opportunities
for family healing through family therapy.
(Return to top
of page)
Are
children at Cunningham eligible for adoption?
Usually, no. Most of the children
have a parent who is living and still has parental rights
even though the state is the legal guardian. Occasionally
we will have a child whose parent's parental rights
have been or are being terminated, in this case the
child then becomes eligible for adoption.
(Return to top
of page)
Are
some of the children addicted to drugs or alcohol?
Many of our children come from families
with a history of drug and alcohol abuse but we are
not a dependency treatment center so we do not work
on drug or alcohol rehabilitation with the children.
If we had a child who was currently addicted we would
refer them to an appropriate treatment facility. We
do work with recovering youth. And we would take a child
back to Cunningham after successful completion of a
rehab program.
(Return to top
of page)
Who
decides when a child is ready for public school?
The decision to send a child from
the Gerber on-grounds school to public school is made
by the cottage team. That team consists of the child
care staff, the clinical case worker, the teachers for
that child, the chaplain and the therapeutic recreation
staff. The recommendation usually comes from the teachers
and is then approved by the other members of the team
based on the child's behavior in the cottage and other
activities.
(Return to top
of page)
Are
college scholarships available?
The board of directors has established
an endowment fund to provide scholarship monies to children
who have been or are currently in Cunningham programs.
Usually, our young people are able to get some financial
assistance through grants and scholarships from the
state but these do not cover all their expenses. Cunningham
scholarships usually go to help with books and living
expenses. Last year we had 6 recipients of higher education
scholarships. Those scholarships ranged in value from
$700 to $1,000 a semester.
(Return to top
of page)
How long
has Cunningham been a home for children?
Cunningham has served children and
youth for 107 years. On Thanksgiving Day 1894, Judge
Joseph and Mary Cunningham donated their rural Urbana
home, "The Cedars," and 15 acres of surrounding
property to the Women's Home Missionary Society of the
Illinois Conference (WHMS-IC) Methodist Episcopal Church.
The warranty deed stated that the home should forever
be used as a home for children. Cunningham Children's
Home began serving children on October 25, 1895.
(Return to top
of page)
Didn't
Cunningham used to be an orphanage?
Children living at Cunningham from
1895 when it first opened until 1949 were rarely true
orphans. True orphans (children who had lost both parents)
were quickly placed in adoptive homes. The majority
of children came from households whose parents were
in need of some help due to the death or desertion of
one parent, divorce, sickness, etc. The children were
brought to Cunningham by family members who later returned
for the children. The family paid to keep the children
at the Home. Some newly-single parents surrendered their
right to their children by legally giving them to Cunningham
Home. These children were placed in adoptive homes,
or if older, were indentured.
The transformation of Cunningham Children's
Home from an orphanage into a residential treatment
center began in 1949 when Sarah English became superintendent.
She was not seeking to change Cunningham into a treatment
center. Her goal was to incorporate within the agency
the most modern child care methods in order to stand
up to all standards for institutions as well as make
Cunningham more able to meet the future needs of Illinois
children. To do this she introduced professional social
work philosophy and techniques to Cunningham. These
professional ideas and values were the principles that
guided the transformation.
(Return to top
of page)
Do
you have house parents?
We no longer have house parents at
Cunningham. We now have professional child care workers
who are trained to deal with emotional and behavior
disordered children and youth. There are usually three
staff members on duty in each cottage, which provides
a 3 to 10 staff to child ratio. There is always an adult
who is awake in the cottage. We no longer have staff
members who "sleep" in the cottages.
(Return to top
of page)
Is
it difficult to find qualified staff and what do you
look for in a potential staff member?
Fortunately, finding staff has never
really been a problem for Cunningham. Because of the
close proximity of the University of Illinois, Illinois
State and Eastern Illinois University, there is a strong
pool of candidates from which to chose. An employee
of CCH must be 21 years or age or older. We look for
people with experience in working with children and
hopefully special needs children. Many of our staff
have undergraduate degrees in psychology, criminology,
child development, elementary or secondary education,
counseling and social work. Our case worker/therapists
are required to have a masters degree in social work
or counseling.
(Return to top
of page)
Is
Cunningham affiliated with The United Methodist Church?
Cunningham Children's Home is a mission
and ministry of the United Methodist Women of the Illinois
Great Rivers Annual Conference. In 1894, Joseph and
Mary Cunningham of Urbana bequeathed their home and
15 acres of land to the women of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, which today is the United Methodist Church.
Since its beginnings, Cunningham Children's Home has
been under the stewardship and governance of the United
Methodist Women. These women have been and continue
to be future-oriented, keeping up with changing child
welfare needs and remaining flexible in meeting these
needs.
The United Methodist Women have been
the stewards of Cunningham Children's Home for over
100 years. They are not only the stewards of the property
but of a larger trust - to give hurting children and
youth hope and a chance to have a healthy life and a
promising future. It is this commitment that sustains
us.
(Return to top
of page)
How
is Cunningham funded?
Approximately 90 percent of the actual
cost of caring for our children and youth is covered
by reimbursements for services from referring agencies.
The other 10 percent (over $900,000 annually) comes
from income from our endowment and other private charitable
support. Contributions from private sources help bridge
the gap between referring agency reimbursements and
the actual costs of caring for, educating and treating
a child.
Charitable gifts made to the Cunningham
Children's Home Foundation support all programs at Cunningham,
including residential care, community group homes, therapeutic
foster care, pregnant and parenting teen program, independent
living, the Gerber School and the CIRCLE Academy Day
Treatment School.
(Return to top
of page)
|
