The House That Faith Built

Faith House cares for children who are exposed to drugs prenatally or whose parents are substance abusers. Our facility opened its doors in 1991 with the purpose of preparing these children socially, emotionally and physically for life outside our walls--either through adoption, foster care or care by the children's relatives.

The idea behind Faith House began with nurse Mildred Jamison, whose job was to evaluate Missouri residential facilities and programs. What she saw were institutions. Many of them were professionally run but lacked warmth or family feeling. How, Mildred wondered, could children growing up in these places get the loving foundation they needed to be happy, productive members of our society?

The answer is faith. And Faith House.

Faith House started as a 12-bed home on Kennerly Avenue. We quickly outgrew our space. With tremendous dedication and determination from board members and staff and with tremendous support from individuals and corporations, we have built a beautiful, 54-bed home on Page Avenue. We now have about 100 employees, including registered nurses, nurse assistants and social workers. All are trained in early childhood development and care for newborns up to eight-year-old children.

Faith House gets a lot of support from our community. Surrogate grandmothers volunteer from Cardinal Ritter Institute's Senior Aid Program. We get graduating nurses from Forest Park Hospital, Maryville College and BJC Health System. Social workers and special education teachers come to us from the University of Missouri St. Louis. We get psychology majors from Webster University. We also have almost 400 independent volunteers.

Faith House has been home to more than 800 children during its existence. Most of our children stay with us from one and a half to two years. As we look to the future, we see increased need in several areas. We plan to build a home for HIV-positive teenagers, a day-care center for infants and senior citizens and transitional housing for people of all ages.