The Nurturing Center’s mission is to provide supportive, respectful services that strengthen families, increasing the number of children raised in healthy, nurturing environments.
The Nurturing Center was founded in 1978 to provide comprehensive support, education and resources to families in a way that focused on empowering parents to build stronger families and healthy, happy children. Our facility in downtown Kalispell reaches out as a resource to the entire Flathead Valley community as well as Lake, Lincoln, and Sanders counties.
Our founder, Susan Christofferson, started The Nurturing Center in 1978 with a passion for children and a conviction that they deserved happy, healthy lives. Susan was a firm believer that the work we have to do is to give children an opportunity to live their life to the fullest. Her lifelong efforts on behalf of children were born out of this belief. She was a strong advocate for changing thinking and preventing bad things from happening before they occurred. Her vision blossomed into The Nurturing Center – a multifaceted agency with a single purpose: to ensure that children are respected and have the opportunity to grow up in safe, secure, and healthy relationships. More than anything she wanted to have positive change begin at the beginning so that children could grow up to be whole, healthy human beings.
The Nurturing Center’s programs are designed around the Six Protective Factors that, when present in a family, can eliminate or greatly reduce the risk of abuse or neglect and have been found to be essential in keeping children safe, happy, and healthy.
