Orchard Place - Developing Strong Futures


It all started with just one child.
 
On a cold November morning in 1886, a three-day-old baby boy was left on the doorstep of a prominent family in Des Moines.  Within 24 hours, Elizabeth Mann and two of her lady friends had established the Home for Friendless Children, the city's first orphanage, which was soon renamed the Des Moines Children's Home and has since evolved into the organization we know today as Orchard Place.
 
No longer an orphanage, Orchard Place still works with many of the state's most emotionally troubled and helpless children, striving to heal their hearts and minds in an effort to help them develop strong, promising futures. In 2005, Orchard Place served more than 5,600 kids and young adults through the Orchard Place Campus, the Child Guidance Center, and the PACE Juvenile Center.
 
·         Orchard Place Campus
During the early 1960s, it became obvious to the board of the Des Moines Children’s Home that there was no longer a need for an orphanage in Des Moines. What was needed, they determined, was a residential facility where children with emotional and behavioral disorders could be treated. 
 
The orphanage closed in 1963 and the board sold their building in downtown Des Moines. They then purchased a five-acre fruit tree orchard on the city’s south side and renamed the agency Orchard Place. 
 
Today the Orchard Place Campus is the premier Psychiatric Medical Institute Iowa, regularly caring for a capacity of 103 children ages 10-17.
 
·         Child Guidance Center
The Child Guidance Center (formerly the Des Moines Child Guidance Center) traces its history back to the 1930s, when a Polk County Juvenile Court judge urged its creation due to the fact that many of the children appearing in his court displayed obvious symptoms of mental and emotional problems that were left untreated because there were no facilities in the area to care for them.
 
The Des Moines Child Guidance Center first focused on helping just those children who appeared before the Juvenile Court, but soon recognized a need to expand its services to other Iowa kids. Before long, the Des Moines Child Guidance Center was treating hundreds of children on an outpatient basis. Its day treatment program was one of the first of its kind in the United States. 
 
In the late 1990s, the Child Guidance Center merged with Orchard Place, and today it is the only state-accredited community mental health center for children in Iowa. Providing a wide range of child-focused, family-centered mental health treatment and prevention services, the Child Guidance Center serves nearly 3,000 children and families each year.
 
·         PACE Juvenile Justice Center
PACE Juvenile Center began as an alternative school for teenagers in 1983. A collaborative effort between the Des Moines Public Schools, the Juvenile Courts, the Iowa Department of Human Services, and Orchard Place, PACE was a program designed to help troubled kids, ages 12-17, who had experienced problems with school or the law. Its goal was to help each child complete his/her education while working to improve his/her opportunities in the job market and throughout life.
 
Today, PACE serves close to 2,500 at-risk and delinquent youth and young adults each year through a continuum of services that works to treat the child, strengthen the family, and promote self-sufficiency. With a building located in downtown Des Moines, two gender-specific day schools, and a School-Based Liaison program that maintains a presence in several Polk County schools, PACE has evolved into a one-stop shop that provides youth and their families with viable solutions to delinquency, truancy, academic deficiency, substance abuse, and inadequate social functioning.