Our Heritage

Heritage
Chaddock has served as a voice for children since 1853. This faith-based and nationally accredited, not-for-profit child welfare agency has historically met the most challenging and critical issues affecting at-risk families.

Founded as a German and English College by the Methodist Episcopal Church, the organization was named Chaddock College after a major benefactor, Charles Chaddock.

In 1900, Reverend William T. Beadles, a Methodist minister and presiding elder, led the ministry in a new direction, changing the campus into an orphanage named Chaddock Boys School. As the needs of young people changed, Chaddock Boys School again modified its role to serve as a boarding school with a military curriculum.

In the 1960s, the organization began on our current journey of service and caring, as Chaddock Boys School became a home for dependent neglected boys. Continuing to respond to the changing needs of young people, residential services for girls were added to the program in 1982 and the organization became simply Chaddock.

Today, Chaddock is a progressive, co-educational child-serving organization that address a full range of the most challenging and life threatening issues affecting at-risk youth, including those with severe emotional and behavioral problems. Our continuum of care extends from relative foster care to a residential treatment facility.

Chaddock is a Golden Cross Ministry of the Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and is nationally accredited by the United Methodist Association of Health and Welfare Ministries, and the Council on Accreditation of Services for Families and Children, Inc.