Mayor David Briley joined the Metro Office of Family Safety and multiple partner agencies to celebrate the official opening of Nashville’s new Family Safety Center.
Located at 610 Murfreesboro Pike, the Family Safety Center is part of a nationwide movement to develop family justice centers that better assist victims of interpersonal violence by co-locating government and nonprofit services under one roof. The Family Safety Center will offer support and resources to anyone in Nashville who has experienced domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, elder abuse or child abuse. Victims/survivors have the option to involve law enforcement or not.
Consisting of more than 75,000 square feet, Nashville’s Family Safety Center is the largest and most comprehensive family justice center in the country.
Partners currently providing services at the FSC include the Nashville Children’s Alliance, the Department of Children’s Services, MNPD Domestic Violence Division’s Family Intervention Program, MNPD Youth Services Department, the District Attorney’s Office, Sexual Assault Center, FiftyForward, YWCA, the Mary Parrish Center.
Mayor Briley was joined by Diane Lance, Department Head for Metro’s Office of Family Safety; MNPD Chief Steve Anderson; June Turner, CEO of the Nashville Children’s Alliance; Jennifer Nichols, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services; and Glenn Funk, District Attorney General in making remarks. Also in attendance were three former Mayors, including Karl Dean, Megan Barry, and Phil Bredesen. “As a city, we should judge our progress by how we care for our neighbors in times of crisis,” said Mayor Briley. “Today, we cut the ribbon on Nashville’s new Family Safety Center—a world-class safe haven for victims of domestic abuse, sexual assault, child abuse, human trafficking, and elder abuse.”
“This Family Safety Center is flipping the model,” said Metro’s head of the Office of Family Safety, Diane Lance.
“We will no longer send survivors all over town to cobble together the help that they need. With Metro and nonprofit partners working under one roof, survivors and their children will have just one place to go for help at a single location filled with people who care.”
