The Children’s Home Society of West Virginia (CHS) hosted its Annual Board Meeting/Dinner on November 11, 2021 at the Four Points by Sheridan Hotel in Charleston, WV. During the meeting, Robert “Bob” Noone was named the winner of the 1st Annual Ruth Eden Bailey Adoption Advocacy Award.
Bob Noone has represented abused children, adopting parents and injured workers from “day one” in a legal career that began over 35 years ago. A past partner in the labor law firm of Crandall & Pyles, he formed Robert Noone Legal Services (1989) in Logan, WV, continuing his primary focus on abused and neglected children, parents seeking to adopt, and juvenile delinquents. He volunteers with youth care and foster agencies and is founding and immediate past chair of the Logan-Mingo Child Advocacy Centers. In the mid-90’s he helped create Logan Health Right to provide free health care to the area’s uninsured.
Bob also opened a practice in Northern Alabama where he performs only adoption legal services for foster parents, stepparents, grandparents and those doing private adoptions. He also assists in ICPC adoptions when children must cross state lines.
Bob Noone enjoys a concentration in juvenile law which resulted in the WV Supreme Court of Appeals first placing him on the Juvenile Justice Committee (1992) and later on the Court Improvement Project which has sought to improve delivery of services to abused and neglected children in the court system. Two of his many awards are the “Champion of Children”, given to him by the WV Children’s Home Society at their Annual Meeting in November 2012, and the first Ruth Bailey Adoption Advocacy Award in 2021.
The Ruth Eden Bailey Adoption Award is 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. However, Ruth always saw it as “just doing her job” but we all know it was much more than that. For over 40 years, Ruth has found homes for children and helped create families. She began this journey as a home finder for WVU affiliated Center for Developmental Disabilities helping special needs clients find love, safety and care with specialized foster families. She then worked for many years for the Department of Health and Human Resources as a home finder and adoption worker.
In October of 1993, Ruth became an adoption worker for the Children’s Home Society at the Princeton location. Ruth quickly became the adoption social worker for southern West Virginia and she soon was sharing her expertise and knowledge state wide. Although it is easy to list Ruth’s work experience, it is much harder to share the essence of impact she had on children, families, her colleagues, and her community. Each and every day, Ruth advocated for her children and families. Ruth valued the importance of policy as the foundation and guide in assessing and approving families, writing home studies, and supporting foster children and foster adopt families. She diligently researched policy and never hesitated to challenge policy, laws, legislature, or procedures when they did not appear to be in the best interests of children.
The Ruth Eden Bailey Adoption Advocacy award is to recognize and honor Ruth’s passion, creativity, and empathy combined with her extraordinary advocacy efforts. Each year a recipient will be chosen who continues to emulate Ruth’s advocacy efforts for children and families.