Family Guidance Center in Hickory closed. What's next for clients? (2024)

The Family Guidance Center closed on Friday.

For 65 years, the nonprofit provided services to families in Catawba County, with a focus on domestic violence and sexual assault victims.

Now that resource is gone. How did we get here?

Financial hardship

Family Guidance Center Executive Director Robert Dalton said the main problem that the Family Guidance Center faced was money.

He said state and federal grant money dried up and there were not enough sources of local revenue to close the gap.

The center’s financial situation took a major turn in 2020 and 2021. Dalton said at that time there was a transition in leadership and the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the center from holding major fundraisers.

“Some of our longer-term grants started to decline at that point,” Dalton said, “There was some short-term COVID funding that was able to use to fill the gap. But, of course, that was temporary. It was kind of in those years since then, you know, staff and board have really worked hard to try to make up those gaps. Unfortunately, it's kind of been a one-step-forward, one-step-back process for us.”

Dalton declined to specify which grants fell through. “While we're very sad that the agency’s going, we’re really not here to point fingers at anyone or anything like that.”

In 2020, the Family Guidance Center’s revenue was $1.36 million. Expenses for 2020 were $1.2 million. In the years that followed, the center’s expenses greatly exceeded the declining yearly revenue, according to the center’s 990 tax forms.

In 2021, the center reported a revenue of $1.15 million and expenses of $1.2 million.

In 2022, the center’s expenses were a little more than $1 million, while the revenue was less than $850,000. That year the organization operated at a deficit of $243,466.

The center reported in 2023 revenue of less than $800,000 with around $900,000 worth of expenses, according to the 990 form.

“We have worked really hard to kind of build out our local funding in a way that maybe the organization hadn't done before when grants were a little more plentiful,” Dalton said. “And while that's been successful, it just wasn't successful enough to fill the gap that we needed to have filled.”

Dalton said any donations made during the center’s last effort to raise money to continue service through the end of the year would be used to pay off remaining account balances, such as loans. Any leftover funds will be distributed to area nonprofits dedicated to helping victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse.

“We're obviously glad to return a donation if the donor now feels differently,” Dalton said.

Transition of programs

Shelter Home of Caldwell County will be expanding their program to serve the domestic violence victims who were being housed in the Family Guidance Center’s shelter, Dalton said. Dalton did not have an exact number of individuals being sheltered with Family Guidance Center.

Shelter Home will also take over the domestic violence and sexual assault hotlines until the end of September, Dalton said. The numbers are 828-228-1787 for domestic violence and 828-302-6952 for sexual assault. At the end of September, the numbers will transition to 828-758-7088, according to a Facebook post by the Family Guidance Center.

Dalton said Shelter Home of Caldwell County has more than 40 years of experience providing services for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Dalton said for the time being, most of the services offered by Shelter Home will be sourced out of Caldwell County with the future goal of having a facility in Catawba County.

The youth mentoring program that the Family Guidance Center provided was serving around a dozen kids, Dalton said. A new provider for the program has not been found. Dalton said the Catawba County Juvenile Crime Prevention Council is searching for a new provider. The council provided the funding for the youth program, Dalton said.

Dalton said the Family Guidance Center was providing counselling to around 60 individuals and families. Clients were made aware of what practices their counselors were moving to. If clients couldn’t be transferred to the new provider or wanted to seek a different option, they were provided with a referral, Dalton said.

The Family Guidance Center is still trying to figure out where their Domestic Violence Intervention Program will go, Dalton said. This program offers treatment for individuals who have used or threatened to use violence against a current or former partner, according to the Family Guidance Center website.