The Steppingstone story began in Kansas City in 1978 when the Evangelical Children's Home, responded to a need identified by area churches for a residential treatment facility for girls. In 1990, realizing there were no transitional living programs for youth in Kansas City, the Steppingstone program for 16 to 21 year olds was added.  The following year a second group home was added to the campus and the program began to serve both boys and girls. In 1997, the residential treatment program on the Kansas City Campus closed and the entire campus became didicated to the Steppingstone transitional living program.

In November of 1998 Steppingstone grew again when it purchased an appartment complex about 2 miles from the main campus.  Both the Group homes and the apartment complex are in the Raytown School district where most of the young people are students.  With the addition of the second campus the full range of transitional living options became available to clients.  Clients now may move from group living, to Steppingstone apartments, to community apartments within the continum of care offered by the program.  

For the more than quarter of a century of serving kids in Kansas City the history of Evangelical Children's Home's service to Missouri youth is much longer. In 1858, Reverend Louis Nollau accepted the first child in the German Protestant Orphan's Home in St. Louis. he was responding to the urgent needs of children left orphaned by a masive cholera epidemic. His goal was to offer children a place where they could heal and feel safe. Today, known as Evangelical Children's Home, we are still striving to keep Reverend Nollau's dream alive. Daily, it is our mission to "assist children, youth and their families in their quest for health and wholeness through faithful, professional services."

In the fall of 1866, 60 children were moved to a farm on St. Charles Rock Road, where our current St. Louis campus now sits. Even in 1866, Nollau was busy carrying out the mission we hold so dear today.

The early population of the Home was not made up of strictly German Evangelicals.  From the beginning, any child who needed the services of the Home was excepted.

During the 1950's, with the restructuring of the foster care system, orphanages were not needed as desperately as before. Evangelical Children's Home opened its doors, once again, to those who were in the most need. Social workers were hired and five family-type cottages replaced the old dormitory housing, thus, creating the Evangelical Children's Home of today.

The children, youth and families Evangelical Children's Home serves today are very different from the children years ago. Most children today have suffered severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse and neglect. Many are suicidal or severely depressed. They need love and support, just like the children in 1858, but they also need something more. They need a new beginning to help offer ways to heal the traumas they have suffered during their young lives.

Today Evangelical Children's Home provides a variety of services in St. Louis and the Steppingstone program in Kansas City.  In each setting of Evangelical Children's Home, the commitment to continuing the legacy of faithful professional service that has always been the hallmark of  the agency.