The Need for Strength

Living in the towns and cities of Southwestern Pennsylvania are thousands of children and families who are searching for a better quality of life. They may be overcome by the trials of daily living, stressed out and angry. Unable to relate to others in a family or classroom setting, they cannot learn and grow to their full potential. Or their problems could be more severe, impacting not just one home or individual but affecting the community through violence, neglect, abuse, or drug and alcohol addiction. Unemployment, poor housing, and poverty can exacerbate the problems in their lives.

This is a disturbing picture but it is also a realistic one. Children slip through the cracks of the public school system, their education neglected as they lose self esteem and productive skills. Too frequently, when mental health problems go undiagnosed, the situation becomes dangerous, involves the court system and breaks up families.

These are individuals who may need long term treatment and ongoing support. Without sufficient funding from government, foundations and private corporations, human services agencies cannot adequately serve the thousands who need help. Providers must untangle a web of government regulations to correctly place people and obtain reimbursement.

At Wesley Spectrum, our job is to find a way to reach these people and give them a sense of home and hope. We must continue to build a wide array of on-going services, and a network of partners that can match people precisely with the services they need. In this way, we can help children and families build the strengths they need to learn, to live and to love.

A Merger of Strengths

For 40 years, The Wesley Institute approached the problems of children and families from a special educational and mental health perspective, using Kid-Centered Decision Making to develop an individualized environment that is planned and managed in the best interest of the child. Spectrum Family Network spent 31 years working to keep families together from another vantage point. By aiding drug and alcohol addiction recovery and providing mental health therapy and family support services, they would lessen tensions and improve family functioning.

Both organizations were dedicated to serving children and families that were searching for a better quality of life, restoring their hope and strength. Yet each was missing vital services that their clients needed. Separately, they were unable to provide a seamless solution to a complex problem that involved all three areas of a child’s life: family, education and mental health.

While each organization had leading strengths, and a strong position in the field, each could only accomplish part of the task. They seemed fated to come together, to meet in the common ground of mental health services and complement each other’s offerings with special education, shelter and family care services.

Only by merging into Wesley Spectrum Services could the new organization attain a vision of strength, and deliver a seamless array of quality services that covers the full range of family struggles. This continuum of services strengthens and integrates education, mental health and family services, fully meeting the complex needs of children and families.

Wesley Spectrum Services can now deliver care in a way that wasn’t possible before, giving children and families the strength to learn, to live and to love.