For many migrants, Philadelphia was viewed as a beacon of light, an exciting destination, and a thriving, beautiful city, where they could blend into bustling urban communities, and dream of new beginnings. However, new beginnings for many Philadelphia-bound migrants proved difficult to achieve and often impossible to sustain.  The ravages of Philadelphia’s 1918 race riots; overt discrimination in housing, employment, and schools; difficulty in adjusting to the newness of an urban environment, and lack of traditional extended family support were problems that often hindred the pursuit of their dreams.

“People who leave their homes and come to the cities, especially the large seaport cities of the east coast seeking work, should really be somehow placed in the care of Christian guardians.  Not that they should be forced by any law to become the wards of the Church, and not treated as free moral agents, but the Church should stand ready to meet them at the gates of the city and offer them protection and guidance…” stated African American Bishop Levi J. Coppin, a prominent figure in the post slavery movement of the late 1800s, and the highly revered of the historic Richard Allen AME church, in south Philadelphia, in 1893.

During the early 1900s, the wife of Bishop Coppin, Melissa Thompson Coppin, MD, then one of 20 African American female physicians in the United States, organized a group of Richard Allen churchwomen, to help with the relocation, child care needs, housing and employment problems that confronted the new Philadelphians. 

Under the leadership of Dr. Coppin, in 1919, the volunteer churchwomen located a property in south Philadelphia, 610 South 16^th Street, and established the Women’s Christian Alliance (WCA).  Within two years, working as volunteers, WCA

• secured housing for several hundred women and their children, including 50 homeless women and children,
• provided care for children of working mothers,
• obtained employment for 204 people,
• coordinated respite care for convalescents in collaboration with other welfare agencies, and
• located homes for 108 dependent children that had been adjudicated by the city’s Municipal Court.

The success of WCA’s work with children, women and families soon gained recognition by Philadelphia’s judicial system.  In 1921, Philadelphia Juvenile Court asked WCA to become an official child placement agency to help reduce the gap in services and care for African American children.  By assuming this historic role, WCA became the first African American foster care placement agency in Philadelphia, beginning the legacy of encouraging “community families” to proudly accept responsibility for providing love and support for abused and/or neglected children.

After remodeling its existing facility to qualify as an official child welfare agency, in 1925 WCA incorporated its program, and received its Charter from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1926.  With the dedicated support of Sara Sinclair Collins, a volunteer assistant to Dr. Coppin, WCA experienced an extensive period of growth, spanning two decades.  Following Dr. Coppin’s death in 1940, Mrs. Collin became WCA ‘s executive director, and continued Dr. Coppin’s legacy for more than 40 years.

With passage of Philadelphia’s Home Rule Charter in 1951, mandating that the city care for all neglected and dependent children, WCA experienced a steadily increasing demand for its caring services for children and families.  Celebrating its 40^th anniversary in 1959, WCA expanded its core services of foster care placement to include medical, dental and psychological professional services, recreational and educational activities for children, employment counseling and job referrals, and family counseling for parents.

WCA was formally approved as an adoption agency by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, in 1958.  By the end of its first year, WCA successfully completed 60 adoptions of African American children.

Through the decades of the 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s, WCA continued to expand its programs to better meet the emerging needs of at-risk children and disadvantaged families.

Today, the majority of families served by WCA are headed by single parents living in sub-standard housing, and neighborhoods plagued by drugs, crime, domestic violence, unemployment, truancy, teen pregnancy and welfare.  Combined with this environment are caregivers who possess limited resources, parenting education, and lack academic and vocational skills. 

Whether working to help abused, neglected or abandoned children find safety and stability in loving families, or to turn around the life of a troubled teen, WCA creates and implements interdisciplinary programs designed to enhance direct and ancillary services for its target population.  WCA collaborates with an array of public and private institutions, throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania, to ensure that child welfare services and family stability programs are available to families in need as a basic human right.

“Child welfare services are alternative ways that have evolved to nurture, care and protect children, to foster their optimum development and social functioning, and, when necessary, to remedy or ameliorate their problems.”

Joseph H. Reid

World Child Welfare Congress
Stockholm,
September 8, 1969