Kleos Philosophy

Kleos Children's Community, ("Kleos", a Greek word meaning "glory" or "that which is of good report and reputation"), is an effort to salvage the most precious possession of human beings - our children!

I will attempt to put into words a description of this vital child care agency and its need. That is not easy to do because I can only write my thoughts and my concerns from my perspective from visiting many institutions and treatment centers across our country in the past twenty years, and being involved in child care for the past fifteen. This, no doubt, will seriously limit what needs to be said in totality: however, it is important for people to be made aware of our goals, philosophy, mission, and purpose in assisting children in need. This is important for many reasons:

First, that those who are also interested in children may gain from our efforts.
Second, that those who desire our services such as judges, state agencies, ministers, social welfare departments, parents, relatives, etc., may understand our methods and facilities.
Third, that there are different schools of thought concerning the approach of child care.
Fourth, that this work is made possible and financed by individuals, businesses, corporations, churches, state and local social services, people who share the same heart, the same burden, and the same concern for disadvantaged children.

Children need to have time to grow away from the bad things that have happened to them and learn that they are valuable, important, and can make good choices regardless of the bad choices that have been made for them. The hope of the world lies in the replacement of patterns of vengeance and hate and violence, with patterns of kindliness, magnanimity, forgiveness, and values... These children need a new environment, new surroundings, new models of living, new friends, and a whole new way of life to respond to. They need to learn what it is to be loved and to love, to cooperate instead of fighting, abuse and destruction. This requires not some unique form of discipline, or short term psychological treatment to change the attitude of a child, but a long term commitment to change his or her perception.

Children without love or faith or hope most often grow up to be our vagrants, delinquents, and mentally ill. Rescued children can help save our world. If we are serious about large scale prevention of delinquency and crime, is it not obvious and imperative that we greatly multiply our efforts to rescue these children before they are ruined, or ultimately end up in our prison systems?

The idea of child care connotes everything from daycare centers to grandparents, to those entities loosely referred to as child care institutions. The reality is, of course, that far too often child care is not that at all, but rather child custody and maintenance. Caring may or may not have anything to do with the particular locale in which child custody refers.

It is the issue of caring in its purest sense that those who have custody of children should constantly address. It is a challenge to care, and it is only people who can provide child care. Anything short of child care is simply child custody.

Children in need are everyone's concern. The goal and concern of Kleos Children's Community is to provide care and not simply custody with a fancy and impressive sounding title, for if we do not care, then our custody will not matter.

Gordon L. Hankins
Founder
Kleos Children's Community