MOUNT VERNON — Darcy Henthorn likes planting seeds. Those seeds take time to grow.

The fruits of her labor can be seen 15 years afterward, making a difference in someone’s life.

Those seeds sprouted at Knox County Family Connections, a private business that supervises children visitations, owned and operated by Henthorn.

Henthorn is a supervised visitation specialist located at 217 East Chestnut St., offering over 20 years of experience at the county’s children service center.

Includes

  • Children’s Services Case
  • Divorce/Dissolution
  • Domestic Violence
  • High Conflict Relationships
  • Custody and Visitation disagreements
  • Other safety concerns

Henthorn, who has an associate’s degree in social work, is employed part-time at the addiction and drug recovery center, Knox Recovery. Knox County Family Connections is a part-time endeavor currently.

Henthorn is also working to renew her chemical dependency counselor application.

“I would like for this to be my full-time employment,” Henthorn said. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long, long time.”

Henthorn has met with juvenile court judge Jay Nixon to get his input on her business before opening.

“They were really supportive,” she said. “(They) said it was a need in Knox County.”

Henthorn said she communicates with any necessary parties like children services, counselors, whoever is involved with the case. Another important piece is staying up-to-date with court orders.

“When there’s a [court] case, I will get documentation — if there’s a court order,” Henthorn said.

Steps to getting started:

  • Call 740-507-7684 to set up assessment interview.
  • Come in for an appointment
  • Supervisor will do assessment with other party.
  • Supervisor will coordinate and set a visitation time that works for everyone invovled.
  • Payment for visit will need to be made prior to visit.
  • Visits will occur

A byproduct of Henthorn’s services is bringing kids and their parents back together at a more frequent rate. Though her business offers an hour, extended timeframes are possible if needed, Henthorn said.

“I’ve seen clients go months without seeing their kids,” Henthorn said. “I want to bridge that gap … provide a service that can happen immediately.”

Supervised visits don’t need to happen at Henthorn’s office, she said. It can be at their house, library, park, etc.

“I’m willing to travel out of the county,” she said.

Knox County Family Connections also offers monitored exchanges between children and their care taker.

Planting seeds

Part of the struggle was realizing you can’t fix everything, Henthorn said. But you can plant seeds, hoping will improvements will be seen one day.

“When I first started doing visits, (I) had a rough time in the beginning,” Henthorn said. “You see a lot of stuff that you had no idea was happening in our community.”

Henthorn remembers running into a former client 15 years after their case was resolved who said, “you made a difference.”

“It means a lot,” Henthorn said. “It’s huge.”

An important pillar for Henthorn is being an unbiased party during supervised visitations — keeping the safety of the children paramount.

“My goal is to help all of the parties while putting the kids first,” she said.

“As long as I’ve made some positive impacts in someone’s life, I’m going with that.”