CHILD AND PARENT SERVICES INC

Our mission is to ensure that every child lives a life free from abuse and neglect. CAPS accomplishes this through education, advocacy, and intervention with families and the community to support safe, stable, nurturing relationships for all children. What is CAPS? In the early 70's there was a growing concern that child abuse was a problem in Elkhart County and nationwide. In 1974, United Way of Elkhart County appointed a task force to study the problem of child abuse and to find solutions. In 1976, United Way provided funding to hire a Child Abuse Coordinator for Elkhart County. The Child Abuse Coordinator was housed with an existing United Way agency known as the Child Health Society of Elkhart. The Child Health Society later changed its name to New Day Parent-Child Society which resulted in a later name change to Child Abuse Prevention Services. CAPS participated in the first Governor's Conference on Child Abuse in 1976, which led to the formation of the Indiana Chapter of the National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse. Much of the focus in late 70's and early 80's was on raising awareness about child abuse and how to prevent it. CAPS has always been a pioneer in the field of child abuse prevention and has played a leadership role at the state level. In 2005, the organization underwent a marketing study which prompted the agency to change its name to Child And Parent Services. To ensure that CAPS is making the greatest impact on the Elkhart Community, a plan was implemented to provide a measurable way to show how much the community really does care about children. The vision CAPS is providing to Elkhart is named Vision 2020 and it serves as a tool to bring the Elkhart Community together to help create and encourage safe, stable and nurturing families for all of the children of Elkhart County. The goal of Vision 2020 is to successfully decrease the number of child abuse or neglect cases by 30% by the year 2020. It takes an entire community to provide children with the childhood they deserve and CAPS is thrilled to get all of Elkhart County on board with this vision.