Our Story:

Our organization was founded in 1976 with the intention to provide services to survivors of power-based personal violence in the Northern Kentucky, Buffalo Trace, and Greater Cincinnati areas. Throughout the years our organization has used several names to present our services to our communities. The Rape Crisis Center of Northern Kentucky and Women’s Crisis Center were names that served us well. However, the growing normalization of violence prevention programs in our culture helped bring discussions of power-based personal violence to the forefront. This illuminated a much more pervasive problem and showed the need to present ourselves in new light to the communities we serve and reach out more effectively to the survivors who live there.
In 2021 we added a new chapter to a 45-year story. Our name was revealed to us by the philosophies that drive our center and the services we provide. Our identity shines in everything we do:

preventION – interventION – compassION – collaboratION – protectION – transformatION

This year we celebrate 50 years of breaking cycles and building safe futures together. Over the past five decades, the Ion Center has walked alongside thousands of survivors, innovated prevention models now used across the Commonwealth, and built partnerships that ensure safety is a shared responsibility. At our core, we believe in the power of safe. Safe homes, safe schools, safe relationships, and safe communities. As we celebrate our 50th anniversary, we honor the generations of survivors, advocates, volunteers, donors, and community members who have made safety possible, and we commit to carrying that power forward.