We are currently accepting applications for the 2026 Ruth Eden Bailey Advocacy Award.
Do you know someone whose advocacy has positively impacted the practice of adoption? If so, nominate them for the Ruth Eden Bailey Advocacy award.
To complete an a nomination form, please click the link below:
Click here for nomination form
The Ruth Eden Bailey Adoption Advocacy Award recognizes those that stand out in the area of Adoption Advocacy. It was created in 2021 to recognize and honor Ruth’s passion, creativity, and empathy combined with her extraordinary advocacy efforts. Each year at least one recipient will be chosen who emulates Ruth’s advocacy efforts for children and families. The award will be presented at the Children’s Home Society’s Annual Conference November 12, 2026. Past winners have included Bob Noone, Adoption Attorney, Leslie Keaton & Katie Jalazo, CHS Social Workers, and Abigail McFarland, Kyle & Christopher Maidona Adoptive Parents.
About the Honoree
The Ruth Eden Bailey Adoption Advocacy Award was created to honor Ruth’s outstanding, life-long career of serving and advocating for children and families. Ruth absolutely loved her work which was obvious to everyone by her passion and persistence. Ruth always saw it as “just doing her job,” but we all know it was much more than that. For over 40 years, Ruth found homes for children and helped create families as a home finder and adoption social worker. Upon joining Children’s Home Society in 1993, she became the heart of our Princeton program as the expert in adoption everyone turned to in southern West Virginia and statewide. Although it is easy to list Ruth’s work experience, it is much harder to share the essence of the impact she had on children, families, her colleagues, and her community. Each and every day, Ruth advocated for her children and families. She valued the importance of policy as the foundation and guide in assessing and approving families, composing home studies, and supporting foster children and foster adopt families. She never hesitated to challenge policy, laws, legislature, or procedures when they did not appear to be in the best interests of children.
In Ruth’s own words:
“I am so honored for having had the opportunity and freedom to have had the abilities to do something I loved, get paid for it, and hopefully been a part of making lives better for our vulnerable little ones. My heart is overflowing with such humility and love! CHS is love and there is no way I could have been any more blessed – in fact, I wish I could have done more….so much more.”