Lynn Ayers

Background

About Lynn Ayers

I have great passion for the work I do and enjoy learning something new every day. I am a strategic thinker who is constantly exploring new ideas and I excel at program development. I love community building from the ground up. I'm also an achiever. I just don't think or talk about new ideas, I actually get things done. I have high expectations of myself and others. My professional career has centered around the investigation of child abuse and neglect cases. My first job out of college was as the founding Program Director for the Saunders County Youth Service System where I worked with delinquent youth. This involved developing a non-profit organization from the ground up including grant writing and fundraising. I quickly discovered the source of many of the challenges faced by the children and adolescents I was working with was abuse and neglect at home. I focused my attention on learning everything I could about the family dynamics of abuse and neglect, specifically child sexual abuse. By 1982, I was working with the Department of Social Services (now DHHS) as an intake worker assessing allegations of abuse and neglect in Butler and Saunders County. I transferred to the Lincoln office in 1984 and was promoted to supervisor in 1988. I was recognized as Worker of the Year in 1986 and Supervisor of the Year in 1996 within the Department of Social Services. But I knew we could do better. I left the Department in 1996, to develop the Child Advocacy Center, a non-profit organization, from the ground up and was the only employee of the CAC until 2001. I served as Executive Director from 1996-2020. During that time, we expanded from a staff of 1 to a staff of 23 and successfully conducted two capital campaigns. We developed satellite offices in York and Auburn. We were a fully accredited Child Advocacy Center through the National Children’s Alliance without a single area for improvement noted year after year. I retired in June 2020 in the middle of a global pandemic. I’m now working full-time at United Way in Lincoln and Lancaster County growing Community Response and developing a coordinated network focused on the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect.