ELKINS — The West Virginia Children’s Home will celebrate 110 years of helping both their children and the community this Wednesday.

The celebration is set for noon Wednesday at the Children’s Home on Heavner Avenue in Elkins.

“Currently, we abide by the mission of the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, which is to protect children and families and to provide them with the tools that they need to go into their futures to live their lives. That is our hope and our dream. We want to be able to provide them with what they need to be able to manage their own lives.” said Carla McCoy, program manager of the Children’s Home.

McCoy said the staff and all of those who support the WV Children’s Home are proud that the facility has affected so many lives for 110 years.

“Oh my goodness, I just go back and think of how we have impacted children and families over those 110 years,” she said. “Even when we weren’t associated with the DHHR, I think that there was a huge impact in the community. Our goal is to bring these children in and their families, and to try to make their world a better place. So, we are trying to do that ‘reach out’ kind of thing, and our little world to reach out into communities and make them a better place for people to grow up in.

“Over the years seeing the little names from way back in the ’20s and ’30s I just think that the West Virginia Children’s Home has impacted not only our little community here in Randolph, but in the entire state,” she said. “We get children from the entire state. I hear people tell stories all the time like, ‘I remember swimming there. We would go there and swim everyday!’

“The West Virginia Children’s Home has been a wonderful institution for a lot of folks, not just the children who are placed here, but the people in the community as well.”

The Children’s Home is also introducing new programs to serve the youngsters.

“We provide the children with the opportunity to have a safe environment in order to learn skills,” McCoy said. “They learn coping skills to deal with past trauma. Coming through on Oct. 1, we are going to be starting our vulnerable children series, which includes sex trafficking and gang-related topics. Incorporating that kind of program into working with our children helps them to be aware of what could happen if they were to run away and how these things can affect their lives.

“We deal with drug use, we deal with a lot of different things, and we try to take in what they come in with and try to help them cope better and learn different ways of living so that they are successful.”

According to the DHHR, the West Virginia Children’s Home provides safety and supportive services.

The facility is a licensed, self-contained, non-secure residential facility operated by the DHHR. The facility has private, semi-private, dormitory and pre-independent housing. The state Department of Education operates a fully accredited on-grounds school. Selected youth attend the local school in Elkins.

The West Virginia Children’s Home program is designed to provide social services to youth ages 12-18 years old from all 55 West Virginia counties who are dependent, neglected delinquent.

These youth cannot make a successful adjustment in the natural home, foster home or group home due to the youths behaviors and attitudes, officials said.

The facility is staffed 24 hours a day.