L. Robert Bolling, CEO of ChildSavers (Photo by Jay Paul)
For many organizations, a 100th anniversary might mean doubling down on past efforts. For ChildSavers, a Richmond-based nonprofit focused on youth mental health, this milestone feels more like a fresh start.
“I think that we used to think of ourselves as a quiet secret in Richmond, and we no longer want to be that,” says L. Robert Bolling, CEO of ChildSavers since 2012. “We want to be loud and boisterous and say that we’re really here, providing high-quality services.”
The organization started in 1924 as the Children’s Memorial Clinic, providing physical and mental wellness services. When planning for the future, Bolling doesn’t ignore the clinic’s past practices or its history with race.
“We were the organization that first only served white kids and began to serve Black kids in a segregated fashion,” he says. “[Now] we’re serving the most diverse population that we’ve ever ser‑
ved. Trying to design services on our mental health side to support all of those populations has been important.”
A rebrand in 2004 turned the Children’s Memorial Clinic into ChildSavers, which spurred a focus on preventive care; educational partnerships with schools in Richmond, Henrico County, Colonial Heights and Hopewell; and a new mission to break down stigmas around mental health care in the Richmond area.
Andrea Willis, a caregiver services clinician who joined the organization in 2020, finds the key to ChildSavers’ longevity is its adaptability. “Not only has Richmond become more diverse, but our staff is becoming more diverse to match the area — we have younger staff than we have [had] before and more Spanish-language care than ever,” she says. “That’s how you get to be 100. You just continue to change.”
Increasing its diversity isn’t the only strategy ChildSavers plans to implement to last another century. As Virginia wrestles with what the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry describes as a “severe shortage” of psychiatrists and an increase in reports of suicidal ideation, self-harm and other risk factors for young people, the ChildSavers team believes meeting children and families where they are is the best way to overcome these challenges.
Massage therapist Portia Price and her family, who live in South Side Richmond’s Westover Hills neighborhood, discovered ChildSavers through Huguenot High School, one of 13 schools in
the city that has a school-based therapy program through the organization. Her son, a Huguenot High student, needed support to navigate the emotional toll of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. ChildSavers provided free weekly care that his mother believes was crucial.
“It feels like counseling helped save his life,” she says. “With no insurance, I don’t have confidence that we could have handled it, because I don’t know how we would have paid for the services that we got for free.”
Learning from successes in recent intervention and prevention models, Bolling hopes that growth is ChildSavers’ big focus for the next hundred years. “Continuing our care is the most important thing we can do, and now is the time to expand that care,” he says. “I think the community will continue to need quality and affordable child care, and we want to be in the space to help make that happen and to help providers get that care.”
