A Richmond-based nonprofit that began in the wake of a deadly flu pandemic is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Concerned citizens established the Children’s Memorial Clinic in 1924 to honor the work of the late Dr. McGuire Newton, one of the first pediatricians in Richmond, and provide free mental and physical health care for children in need.
Over the last century, the clinic grew into the organization now known as ChildSavers and expanded its footprint across the commonwealth — with locations from the Northern Neck down to North Carolina’s border and in Southwest Virginia.
Today, ChildSavers serves about 38,000 people in 100 Virginia localities, with a dual focus on addressing children’s mental health needs and improving access to quality child care. Robert Bolling, the company’s CEO since 2012, said he hopes to expand service to 50,000 in the next five years.
At an event in August marking the organization’s 100- year anniversary, Bolling told a crowd, “We’re proud of that legacy of providing top notch mental health services for kids and engaging in prevention services and supporting providers of childcare across the Commonwealth.”
The parallels between the effects of the influenza pandemic of the late 1910s and the COVID-19 pandemic are not lost on Bolling.
“We began right after the 1918 flu pandemic that devastated the globe,” he said. “Similarly, we’re coming out of a pandemic that has had tremendous impact across our world again 100 years later.” The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for safe, reliable child care for working parents. “If we don’t provide support for families such that they can continue to work,” Bolling said. “Then we’re not doing a great job for the long term sustainability of the economy of the United States.”
The youth mental health support is an important aspect of the care ChildSavers provides. Bolling says it’s imperative to treat childhood trauma early.
“If you don’t address those concerns early in life, the likelihood of adverse outcomes — like dropping out of high school, being a substance abuser yourself, being incarcerated — all of those will be more likely to happen,” Bolling said.
The need to shore up Virginia’s mental health care system has grown since the pandemic. A 2023 survey by Mental Health America ranked Virginia 48th in the nation in youth mental health care treatment.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin launched the “Right Help. Right Now” initiative in 2022, which added $230 million of new funding over three years to support the state’s overburdened behavioral health care system.
Michael Southam-Gerow, VCU psychology professor and director of the Center for Evidence-based Partnerships in Virginia, said another change in mental health care is the decreased stigma that comes with seeking care.
“I think we're getting over that hurdle, somewhat, in our culture, where we're not blaming ourselves as much,” Southam-Gerow said. “We understand that there's, you know, genetic components and environmental components to these mental health problems.”
But along with the decreased stigma around mental health care, Southam-Gerow said there’s an increased need for mental health counseling, which puts additional strain on the system.
Bolling acknowledges Virginia has made progress in addressing its mental health care crisis, but said there’s more work to do — “particularly for children whose finances in their homes aren’t providing the access they need.” The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that Black and hispanic children are less likely to receive treatment for mental health issues.
“Children of color have less access to child care services,” Bolling said. “So our work in trying to increase the level of access for those kids is really important.”
Bolling said the lesson ChildSavers has learned from 100 years caring for children is that it’s “better to serve kids regardless of what they look like.”
“If we do that, we’ll be around 100 years from now celebrating the fact that our kids are performing well,” he said.
