FBI Omaha Honors St. Luke’s Child Protection Center with Director’s Community Leadership Award

OMAHA, Neb. — The FBI Omaha Field Office will honor St. Luke’s Child Protection Center with the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award for its service to victims and their families and its work supporting child-abuse investigations and prevention efforts.

Assistant Special Agent in Charge Dannie Price of the FBI Omaha Field Office is scheduled to present the award on September 2, 2026.

Dr. Regina A. Torson and Julie Kelly-Molander of St. Luke’s Child Protection Center will accept the award on behalf of the organization.

The FBI established the Director’s Community Leadership Award, known as the DCLA, in 1990 to recognize individuals and organizations that strengthen their communities through education, crime prevention, violence prevention, and public-service partnerships.

Each year, one recipient is selected from each of the FBI’s 55 field offices, making the award a national recognition tied directly to local community impact.

St. Luke’s Child Protection Center was selected for its centralized approach to suspected child abuse and abuse or neglect involving dependent adults.

The center works with investigators by providing a child-friendly and secure environment where interviews, examinations, advocacy, and related services can be coordinated in one location.

That structure can reduce the number of separate environments a victim must enter during an investigation and allows law enforcement, medical personnel, advocates, and other professionals to work from a more coordinated response model.

Price said partnerships between the FBI and community organizations are critical during routine investigations and periods of crisis.

He specifically credited St. Luke’s Child Protection Center with allowing the FBI to use its facility while suspected abuse allegations are being processed, helping investigators handle crimes against children more efficiently and in a setting designed around victim safety.

The center provides multiple services at no cost to victims and their families.

Those services include:

• Forensic interviews
• Medical examinations
• Family advocacy services
• Mental health services
• Child-abuse prevention education

The center also operates SafeTouch, a prevention program for students from kindergarten through fifth grade.

SafeTouch is designed to teach children how to recognize unsafe situations, establish personal boundaries, and seek help from trusted adults when necessary.

The program adds a prevention component to the center’s investigative and victim-support work.

Rather than functioning only after suspected abuse has occurred, the center also provides education intended to help children identify concerning situations earlier and understand when they should tell a trusted adult.

Julie Kelly-Molander, Manager of UnityPoint Health – St. Luke’s Child Protection Center, said the organization was honored to receive the FBI recognition.

Kelly-Molander emphasized that the center’s work depends on strong cooperation with law enforcement and other professionals involved in child safety.

She said the partnership model helps ensure children who have experienced abuse receive a coordinated and compassionate response.

The FBI has emphasized community partnerships as part of its broader public-safety strategy.

Programs recognized through the Director’s Community Leadership Award have included efforts focused on crime prevention, protection of vulnerable populations, cyber-threat education, violence reduction, and community outreach.

For St. Luke’s Child Protection Center, the award reflects a partnership directly connected to investigations involving children and dependent adults.

That work places medical, investigative, advocacy, and mental-health services within a single support structure rather than requiring victims and families to navigate each part independently.

The recognition also highlights the role specialized child-protection centers can play in law-enforcement investigations.

A child-friendly interview environment can be critical when investigators are working with young victims who may already be experiencing trauma, fear, confusion, or difficulty explaining what occurred.

The goal is to support investigations in a child-friendly setting designed to reduce additional distress while helping law enforcement work more efficiently and in a timely manner.

The FBI Omaha Field Office said St. Luke’s Child Protection Center has consistently worked alongside federal investigators during suspected abuse cases.

That continuing partnership was central to the FBI’s recognition of the center.

The award presentation is scheduled for September 2, 2026, with Price presenting the honor and Torson and Kelly-Molander accepting it for the center.

The FBI’s recognition of St. Luke’s Child Protection Center reflects a broader principle in crimes-against-children investigations: effective enforcement often depends on cooperation between investigators and the organizations responsible for medical care, forensic interviewing, victim advocacy, mental-health support, and prevention education.

In this case, that partnership has created a centralized response intended to protect victims while helping investigators move suspected abuse cases forward in a timely and coordinated manner.

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