By Andy Furman
NKyTribune staff writer
Bigger may be better – but for the Family Nurturing Center, well it is more of a necessity.
“We’re moving from our home of seven years — 5 Spiral Drive in Florence – to 380 Centre View Boulevard in Crestview Hills,” Jane Herms, President and CEO of the Center told the Northern Kentucky Tribune, during an abbreviated walk-through the new facility the other day. “We have 12,000-square feet in Crestview Hills now, and when we’re finally moved in, we’ll have 18,000.”
That move is set to be completed sometime in the summer of 2026, she said.
So, why the move?
“We’re just running out of space,” she said, “and our lease was ending, so the timing seemed to be perfect.”
The Family Nurturing Center has about 30 employees currently working in their Florence office. The move to Crestview Hills is a perfect fit, Herms says.
“We were looking for a central location to serve our three counties – Boone, Kenton and Campbell,” she said. “We needed a place with free parking and an area with some access to outdoor space.”
Families will be familiar with the new location, as the parking lot will be shared with the Children’s Hospital’s location.
And after some forty-six years, this is the first time the non-profit will own their own building.
The mission of FNC is simple – to end the cycle of child abuse by promoting individual well-being and healthy family relationships. Since 1979 they have provided quality, innovative, and effective child abuse prevention, education, and treatment services.
“The FNC offers counseling services – both individual with a strong family involvement component, as well as group services,” Debby Shipp, Director of Development for FNC said. “We specialize in serving individuals, children and adults who have experienced trauma, and have licensed therapists to provide several evidenced based therapy modalities,” she said. “The FNC treats the child until they are well – with no fee, and our people want to know why the individual acts the way they do.”
FNC Services include:
• Education and Training Services: Group-based education focusing on community safety and providing space to learn and grow.
• Counseling Services: Hope and healing for children and adults who have experienced childhood trauma.
• Parenting Time Visitation Services: Creating safe interactions between children and their parents or other caregivers.
• Parenting Services: Parenting support to help children and parents thrive.
• Holistic and Wellness Services: Non-traditional services to help you heal from trauma and live your best life.
S.P.A.R.K. – Sparking Power and Resiliency in Kids serves children ages 4-18 who have experienced trauma and their parents/caregivers. The 10–12-week program provides a solid foundation for healing and creates a safe and strong support system. Children and caregivers participate in separate group meetings with their peers.
Trauma therapy, says Shipp, is a specific approach to therapy that is built on the understanding of how traumatic experiences affect an individual’s’ mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
“This type of therapy aims to help children, adolescents, and adult survivors heal from the effects of trauma,” she added. “We not only treat the child, we also treat the caregiver.”
The FNC offers Stewards of Children, a revolutionary prevention program designed to teach adults to prevent, recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuses, in partnership with Darkness to Light.
“We’ll see some 300-plus family units per week,” she said. “We need to talk about sexual abuse more, much more.”
For 46 years, FNC has been a leading provider of free trauma-informed child abuse prevention and treatment services.
And, according to the FNC 2024 Impact Report, the agency served 9,383 individuals through trauma-informed counseling, parent education programs, holistic wellness initiatives, and child abuse prevention efforts.
“Child abuse,” reminds Shipp, “affects all of us, regardless of whether we know any of the five children in America who will be reported abused at any time. Estimates are conservative that one in ten children will be sexually abused by the time they turn 18 and that one in five children will be physically or emotionally abused or neglected.”
Now, FNC will have a new home to welcome those who require their free assistance.
(Note: The Inaugural FNC Golf Scramble is set for September 18th at Boone Links Golf and Event Center. Look for more on that at tne NKyTribune.)