Helping transform children’s lives since 1991
Omni Family of Services has achieved an impressive anniversary — 30 years in operation and still growing! — and we’d like to celebrate by sharing something special: our story!
Omni was created because our co-founders were passionate about finding a “better way to work with kids.” At the time, children who came into custody in one state were often sent to a congregate setting — a girls’ home or boys’ home or residential treatment facility — which was often located in a different state.
There was no concept recognizing that keeping kids close to their families and familiar communities might be beneficial for everyone involved. Omni pitched our unique approach to the state of Tennessee, and, in April 1991, found local Middle and East Tennessee families for a handful of children in an out-of-state residential treatment program and brought them closer to home.
That bold move upended the institutionalized model of foster care placement and services. And we’ve continued to lead the way in the thirty years since. Today Omni Family of Services is a multi-state agency supporting adults and children through foster care placement and training, behavioral health, adoption services and family preservation.
Our founding principles have remained the same: that every child deserves a home, and that the best way to serve them is in a home-like environment where services are available in the frequency, intensity and duration necessary for each child to succeed. And to ensure that home is safe, secure and loving (whether it’s with biological, foster or adoptive parents) we must also support the adults in each child’s world.
What We’ve Been Doing the Past 30 Years…
Our dedication to fostering better lives for neglected, traumatized or abused children has driven our strategic expansion efforts:
- Within a year of its 1991 foster placements in Middle Tennessee, Omni was operating throughout all of Tennessee.
- By 1992 the agency began taking its first foster care placements in North Carolina.
- An early advocate for inclusion, Omni began providing services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in 1996.
- In 2006 the organization expanded into Kentucky by partnering with Western Kentucky United Methodist Family Services in Paducah.
- In 2007 it acquired Foothills Care, a family preservation program that is now part of Omni Visions.
- With the acquisition of Phoenix Homes in 2010, Omni became the largest foster agency in Tennessee.
Additionally in 2014, through the merging of Lifecare Family Services, The Solution Source, and Foothills Care, we created Omni Community Health to provide comprehensive behavioral health services to children, adults and families. Since that time, Omni has founded several other sister organizations – all designed to further the mission of advancing hope and healing to improve lives, empower people, and strengthen communities.
Omni Family of Services Today
We are thrilled to announce that we launched the Attachment, Self-Regulation and Competency (ARC) training and organizational framework in January 2021. ARC is a promising component-based treatment framework designed to address the developmental impact of complex trauma on children. Implementing ARC across our organization ensures all Omni evidence-based practices will be delivered consistently — with the benefit of delivering a more complete picture of the challenges that each child may face in the future.
Profiles in Caring: Our Omni Employees
Omni Family of Services owes its reputation and success to our employees, the dedicated professionals bringing hope and healing to their clients, day in and day out. We invite you to celebrate them with us — check out their profiles on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to see how they are working to transform the lives of children, adults and families.
Ready to Become a Foster Parent?