The work we do today is rooted in our history
The Rev. Robert Mize Jr., an Episcopal priest, founded Saint Francis Boys’ Home more than seven decades ago in Ellsworth, Kansas. Fr. Bob had seen too many troubled youth disappear forever into the juvenile justice system, and he wanted to help them reclaim their lives and their futures. He offered hope. Over the years, the scope of our ministry has grown, encompassing foster care, therapeutic foster care, adoption, family preservation, residential care, and community outreach services. We provide child welfare services in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and adult developmental disabilities services in Mississippi. Saint Francis Boys’ Home began with 12 boys; today Saint Francis Ministries serves thousands of children and youth. Yet, we still do the same work begun by Fr. Bob – helping children and youth find a more hopeful future.
Since 1945, Saint Francis Ministries has been dedicated to the needs of children and youth. We advocate for them and work to protect them. We do our best to ensure that every child we serve gets a chance at a happy and fulfilling life. As a non-profit, faith-based organization, we place great stock in the value of both traditional and non-traditional families. We believe strong families make children’s lives better.
What began as a home for boys on the Kansas prairie is now a multi-faceted child and family services ministry serving more than 11,000 people in Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas with a broad range of programs and services. We help strengthen and heal families while providing for the health and security of children.
Saint Francis Ministries is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to the protection, nurturing, and healing of children and families in body, mind, and spirit. To that end, while partnering with government agencies in supporting children and families in crisis, Saint Francis Ministries honors religious freedom and is also committed to allowing children and families in its care to participate in religious activities on a voluntary basis.
Saint Francis, providing healing and hope to children and families.
Transform lives and systems.
We place honesty and uncompromising adherence to ethical values at the forefront of all we do, understanding those principles to be critical in building trust with those we serve and the partners who support our mission.
We deliver services at the highest levels of excellence, in a manner that exceeds traditional standards, provided in a transparent, timely and reliable way by highly qualified, kind, and respectful staff.
We provide care that supports and reflects an understanding of a person, regardless of differences. This extends to our staff, clients and the communities we serve.
We meet a changing environment by developing more effective solutions through the lens of evaluating current and past practices, and continuous improvement using creative invention, promising practices, and evidence-based research.
We take ownership of our work, exercise decision making to achieve goals, and maximize quality of services with shared accountability and responsibility.
We believe in Therapy in Christ.
What does this mean to us?
We offer unconditional love.
Forgiveness leads to transformation.
We are accountable to ourselves and others.
We start and end each day with God.
Firmly rooted within the Episcopal tradition, Saint Francis has ministered to children and families for seven decades.
Saint Francis Ministries began as the vision of The Rev. Robert Mize Jr., an Episcopal priest serving several small churches in western Kansas during the 1940s. Early in his ministry, Fr. Bob noticed that many boys labeled “juvenile delinquents” were becoming lost within a system of institutions, reformatories, and jails. This troubled him deeply, and he grew determined to create an alternative – one that offered hope and the opportunity for wayward young men to reclaim their potential.
Through Fr. Bob’s tireless efforts, Saint Francis Boys’ Home opened its doors in Ellsworth, Kansas, in 1945. A staff of four supervised and served its first residents, a dozen unruly young men. Three years later, Fr. Bob opened a second Boys’ Home just west of Salina, Kansas, near Bavaria.
Today, Saint Francis serves more than 11,000 children and families and employs about 1,600 people in six states.
Firmly entrenched within the Episcopal tradition and dedicated to service, our mission has remained unchanged since 1945 – to serve children and families as an instrument of hope and of healing in body, mind, and spirit.
Despite recent challenges, Saint Francis Ministries is financially both sound and strong, and we remain more committed than ever to our mission to provide healing and hope to children and families.
In late 2020, Saint Francis installed a new leadership team which immediately began crafting a culture of integrity within our organization, dedicated to doing “the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason – even when no one is looking.”
Today, Saint Francis Ministries remains deeply committed to integrity, quality of service, respect and dignity, innovation, and empowerment. Today, we are a success story.
Learn more by reading the full statement here.