In the heart of Western Kentucky, Necco serves as a multi-state child welfare organization dedicated to building families and connecting children with supportive environments.
The organization started in 1996 as a foster care center focused on providing children with stable and loving homes. Although Necco originated in Cincinnati, Ohio, the organization has 11 offices throughout the state of Kentucky alone.
“Our role is to help take care of the youth and ensure that their services are being met while the state works with the biological families,” said Lauren McKeehan, the foster care program director at Necco’s Paducah office.
Every child in Necco’s care has been removed from a parent or guardian for abuse or neglect. Before a child is removed from the home, Necco places the child into a behavioral health program and provides in-home service treatment.
When a couple decides they want to foster a child through Necco, that couple will begin the process to become a foster parent through an orientation and home visit. Before approval, the couple will undergo a background check and demonstrate a level of financial stability. Unlike other foster care programs, Necco allows single parents and same sex couples to become foster care parents.
Necco’s values are based on philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s principles of morality and the nature of benevolence at the organization’s core.
“Trust between a child and adult is essential,” McKeehan said. “Kids should also know some joy despite behaviors and traumas. Just because something has happened in the past, doesn’t mean it can’t be healed.”
The organization also encourages attachment because it helps build a stronger relationship between the children in foster care and the foster parents. Despite any foster parent’s attachment, Necco’s ultimate goal is to bring children back home.
“When kids truly get to reunify with biological families, we get to see the work of not only the youth, but the families they are returning to,” McKeehan said.
When children are unable to return home, Necco also appreciates all foster parents who choose to adopt their foster children. Regardless of the parent, the organization prioritizes the growth and flourishment of all foster children over everything else.
For children who age out of the foster care system, Necco has an independent living program that provides resources to foster children who are now between the ages of 18 and 21.
Throughout the country, Necco has offices in Georgia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, and most recently Indiana.
With an office in Paducah, Necco is prepared to provide all children in need of foster care with a loving environment in the Western Kentucky area.
