VIRTUAL TOUR of the COLORADO STATE HOME for DEPENDENT and NEGLECTED CHILDREN

Short History

    "The 1895 General Assembly approved the establishment of the State Home for Dependent and Neglected Children to provide a state institution 'to receive, care for, and place for adoption and indenture, dependent and neglected children.' Commitments were to be from the county and juvenile courts of Colorado.  Two types of commitment became established:  (1) of children voluntarily relinquished by their guardians, and (2) of children forcibly removed from their guardians due to abuse and neglect or abandonment.

    As the years passed, the Home became a depository for children neither readily adoptable nor permanently place able, because of mental or physical defects, emotional traits, or race, or religion.  The Home adjusted its program to meet the new demands, and transferred emphasis to the care, treatment, and training of mildly handicapped children, in spite of the fact that the law said the children admitted should be "of sound mind and body."

    In 1953 the General Assembly changed the name of the institution from the State Home for the Dependent and Neglected Children to the Colorado State Children's Home.  The title change was a reflection of the change of legislative concept of the function of the Home...

    "The population of the Home continues to be primarily of children difficult to place in permanent surroundings because of racial, religious, or emotional characteristics.  On the basis of laws passed in 1959, the Home's adoption program for infants was discontinued that year and since the children under seven years of age have not been committed to the Home."1

   With the loss of of its infant and toddler services program the Home  lost the majority of its population.  Within four years the admittance rate to the Home went from 220 children to 34.  Along with the loss of population came the 1967 Colorado Children's Code which changed the Colorado State Children's Home to the Colorado Youth Center.  By 1971 the Home closed its doors after welcoming in almost 17,000 children to a better and happier life. 2

1.     Colorado State Children's Home, Division of Youth Services,   Department of Institutions,  Report and Statistical Analysis 1953 - 1963,   1963.

2.     Colorado State Children's Home Reunion Committee, Colorado State Home Memories 1896 to 1996,   1996, pg. 29 - 33.

Colorado State Children's Home Main Page

Last modified June 18, 2003