Orphanage

An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose biological parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them. Biological parents, and sometimes biological grandparents, are legally responsible for supporting children, but in the absence of these, no named godparent, or other relatives willing to care for the children, they become a ward of the state, and orphanages are one way of providing for their care, housing and education.

It is frequently used to describe institutions abroad, where it is a more accurate term, since the word orphan has a different definition in international adoption. Although many people presume that most children who live in orphanages are orphans, this is often not the case with four out of five children in orphanages having at least one living parent and most having some extended family. Most orphanages have been closed in Europe and North America. There remain a large number of state funded orphanages in the former Soviet Bloc but many of them are slowly being phased out in favour of direct support to vulnerable families and the development of foster care and adoption services where this is not possible.

Children's Home

Children's Home is a historic building at 427 Robeson Street in Fall River, Massachusetts. It was built in 1895 to replace an earlier wooden building. The Children's Home was founded in 1873 as a merger of the Fall River Orphan's Asylum and Children's Friend Society. It is an architecturally eclectic brick building, with asymmetrical massing and a complicated roof line typical of the Queen Anne Revival, but also with Colonial Revival features including its columned porch and bracketed cornice. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The listing included a small stick-style picnic shelter also located on the property.

It is now owned by Citizens for Citizens, Inc.

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