Child Advocacy Center director updates Tipp City Council on services, staffing and school prevention program

TIPP CITY, Ohio — Jennifer Nisley, program director for the Child Advocacy Center at Isaiah’s Place, updated Tipp City Council May 5 on the center’s work coordinating child-abuse investigations and providing trauma-informed services across Miami County.

Nisley said the center, which coordinates forensic interviews, mental-health referrals and other services for child-abuse investigations, has been open a little more than 2½ years and has expanded staff to meet demand. “We have ... tripled our staff. We added a full time therapist,” she said, and added another part-time social worker in 2024 to conduct forensic interviews and follow-up services.

She said the center served 155 individual children last year and that Tipp City accounted for about nine of those forensic interviews. The center links children to medical and mental-health providers, and staff said the program keeps per-case costs below the statewide average reported on the center’s materials.

Nisley also told council the center is coordinating child-abuse prevention programming for K–6 public schools in Miami County under a recently enacted law requiring such instruction; the center purchased the curriculum and trains local facilitators so school districts can implement the program without separately purchasing materials.

Council members thanked Nisley and encouraged community members to visit the facility. Nisley said staff are available for additional questions and that she had provided a PowerPoint and contact information to council in advance.