HISTORY
Trillium Family Services
The Waverly Children’s Home (Waverly Baby Home)
Trillium Family Services is one of the largest provider of mental health services for children and families in Oregon. Founded in 1998, Trillium was created through the merger of three of the state’s oldest nonprofits dedicated to serving its most vulnerable youth: Waverly Children’s Home in Portland, Parry Center for Children, and Children’s Farm Home in Corvallis.
This transformation began in July 1997, when the Children’s Farm Home and Waverly Children’s Home joined together to form Pacific Northwest Children’s Services. In November 1998, Pacific Northwest Children’s Services merged with the Parry Center for Children, officially establishing Trillium Family Services.
In 2025, Trillium launched a new chapter by unifying all locations under the core Trillium Family Services brand. This evolution honors a long-standing legacy while aligning with a forward-looking vision—making it easier for patients and clients to recognize and access services across the organization. As part of this transition, campuses are now identified as the Trillium Family Services Corvallis Campus and Portland Campus, replacing the former “Children's Farm Home” and “Parry Center for Children” names.
During the late 1880’s, Portland’s growing population drove the need for the care of abandoned and mistreated children increased. On May 16, 1889 a charitable organization, The Waverly Baby Home, was established under the leadership of Mary Halsey. In 1931 a new home was built on a beautiful three-acre site.
On June 11, 1985, The Waverly Baby Home became The Waverly Children’s Home licensed by the state of Oregon for the care for children up to age 12 with a focus on residential care and treatment for emotionally and behaviorally challenged children and their families.
In 2007, programs and services offered on the Waverly site were moved to Trillium’s Parry Center located on East Powell Boulevard in Portland, Oregon. The historic Waverly Children’s Home campus remained vacant until 2011 when the building and acreage were sold.
The Children’s Farm Home (Now, Corvallis Campus)
In 1992, The Children’s Farm Home applied for and achieved national accreditation by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospital Organizations (JCAHO). The accreditation provided the means for acquiring contracted funding through the Oregon State Mental Health Division for the care and treatment of disadvantaged children and their families throughout the State of Oregon.
Over one hundred years later, it is now the Trillium Family Services' Corvallis Campus for our programs and services in the Mid-Willamette Valley region.
The Children’s Farm Home was created as an orphanage in 1922 by the Oregon Women’s Christian Temperance Union. In December 1922, Ms. Unruh turned the first shovel of dirt on a 300-acre campus for the first cottage called Willard; named after Francis Elizabeth Willard who founded the World’s Women Christian Temperance Union in 1883.
It was in 1962 that the focus of the organization turned from housing orphans to treating youth with behavioral and emotional struggles, setting the stage for Trillium’s current mission.
In 1925, Children’s Farm Home “Old School” built by the Women’s Christian Union.
The Parry Center for Children (Now, Portland Campus)
In 1867, the Ladies Relief Society formed one the first charitable organizations in Oregon to help children, many of them orphaned children as part of the trek west in the days of the Oregon trail.
In 1926, a home was built to care for these children on an East Powell Boulevard campus in Portland, Oregon where it stands today.
In the 1950’s approaches to care for children suffering from mental illness changed and in 1961 the first Oregon program for residential treatment for severely troubled children and their families was established; officially named Parry Center for Children in honor of Elizabeth Parry, a long-time superintendent of an earlier Children’s Home.
The Parry Center also underwent several iterations, supporting different populations and structures throughout its existence. Over 160 years later, it now serves as the main campus for services and programs in the Portland metro region as Trillium Family Services' Portland Campus.