Founded in 1833 as "The New Haven Orphan Asylum," The Children’s Center of Hamden is Connecticut’s oldest private, nonprofit child-caring agency. Its mission then was described as "relieving, supporting and educating children who are friendless and destitute" and it served as a major adoption center for much of its existence. In 1925 The Children’s Center moved to its present location in Hamden on ten beautifully landscaped acres overlooking Lake Whitney. This move introduced the innovative concept of small, home-like cottages for group living instead of large dormitory-style buildings out of a Dickens novel.

Throughout its history, the agency has adapted the services it provides to meet the changing needs of children and families. In the late 1930s it served as a convalescent home for children with polio and rheumatic fever. In the 1940s it was a refuge for 125 children and 19 mothers from Oxford, England, who were sent to America to escape Nazi bombing raids. In the 1950s The Children’s Center evolved into a Residential Treatment facility for children identified with social or emotional problems and at risk of abuse and neglect. Residential Treatment continues to be the signature program of the agency.

In the 1980s the agency responded to needs of children for drug and alcohol treatment. Up to that point, adolescents had been piggy-backed into adult programs. The Children’s Center opened what was then a unique, first-of-its kind program in Connecticut --a stand-alone adolescent substance-abuse treatment program attached to a facility whose sole mission was to provide for children. Today, two substance-abuse programs are provided at the Hamden campus: the Wakeman Hall Outpatient Program and New Choices, an intensive 28-49 day inpatient program for court-mandated youth.