December 25, 2012 • Page 4 shop online at www.missourivalleyshopper.com Introducing Family Visitation Center Lyndsay Evans is a Yankton native, who graduated from Yankton High School with the class of 2003. She completed a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology from USD in 2009, and she is currently finishing her Master’s of Science in Clinical Counseling, and she will have it completed in March. Lyndsay started working for the Yankton Women’s and Children’s Center in September 2011 as a Domestic Violence Advocate. In March of this year, she became the Coordinator of the Family Visitation Center, which is an umbrella agency of the Women’s and Children’s Center. The Family Visitation Center is an agency that is committed to keeping children safe and happy, which is a passion that Lyndsay exhibits in her work every day. The mission of the Yankton Family Visitation Center is to provide a safe and well­ supervised environment for family visitation and exchanges for children of families who are working to establish or re­ establish relationships between the children and their separated or divorced parents where there have been domestic violence situations, child abuse and neglect, or conflict with their visitation. The staff is committed to the physical and emotional safety of children while they are visiting their parents and the FVC provides a safe, comfortable, home­like environment in which to do this for them. Children are often caught in the middle of their parent’s problems, and need a safe, stable environment to help them create new, positive memories with their loved ones. Besides supervised visitation, the visitation center offers safe exchanges of children from one parent to the other without them having any contact with one another. These exchange services are provided to those who may have a history of domestic violence, harassment, or any other kind of stressful environment. About two years ago, the Yankton Women’s and Children’s Center received a grant to be able to build a beautiful, new facility that is able to serve more clients and has been a huge blessing to the community. The FVC now has two separate entrances for the parents to come into the facility through, and has very enhanced security and surveillance equipment to heighten the safety of the clients and the staff. Over the past few months, the visitation center has seen tremendous growth in the numbers of clients served, and have set some big records with these numbers. To show a comparison, in May the visitation center provided 39 supervised visits and throughout the summer and fall, the numbers of visits steadily increased. In November the number of visits was 57, and is still increasing throughout December. The number of clients being served has increased from 69 adults and 61 children in January of this year to 87 adults and 83 children in November, all from the Yankton area and some of the surrounding communities. Because of these huge increases in numbers, Lyndsay applied for a United Way Venture Grant and was approved for the funding for another set of the surveillance equipment used to conduct the visits, as well as funding for a metal detector for the front door to enhance security and safety. “Our numbers have increased so much over the last few months, without any sign of letting up, that it is necessary to be able to provide simultaneous visits so that two of our families are able to utilize the facility at the same time. It is heartbreaking to have to tell a mom or dad that they are not going to be able to have a visit with their babies because I am not able to provide the space in the schedule for them because we only have one set of equipment. The venture grant is an enormous blessing for us to receive, and I am so happy to be able to serve more clients and to continue to put smiles on the parents and children when they are reunited.” A long term dream for the Family Visitation Center is to be self­sustaining and to not have to rely on the women’s shelter for much of its funding. With the support and generosity of this wonderful community, this dream could become a reality and the visitation center would be able to continue to grow and serve the growing population. The Yankton Women’s and Children’s Center will be hosting a Dinner Theater fundraiser, with a silent auction as well as a live auction on February 9th, and would like to invite the community to join them. Tickets are $50 each and are available now. 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