Wendt Center for Loss and Healing

Locally, we are working to ensure that children and adults suffering from exposure to grief and trauma receive the services they need to prevent or overcome the potentially debilitating and intergenerational consequences of that exposure.

Our vision is to be a preeminent national resource and model of professional grief and trauma counseling, with a special emphasis on children and youth.

We aspire not only to help people overcome the debilitating consequences of trauma and loss through the provision of direct services in the Washington, DC metropolitan region, but to build our national presence, contribute our significant expertise and lessons learned through training and education to nurture the highest quality grief and trauma services for adults and children in communities nationwide.

1. Continue to build state-of-the-art infrastructure and operations to support the highest quality, effectiveness, and reach of services.

2. Develop and maintain new strategic partnerships that will help elevate the profile of the Wendt Center to participate in a national discussion on grief, loss and trauma.

3. Launch grief and trauma certification programs for mental health professionals that build the capacity to serve children, adults, and families impacted by grief and trauma.

The Wendt Center has a highly engaged and effective Board of Directors who govern, support, and oversee the overall direction and success of the organization.

Our staff is highly trained, nationally respected, and frequently called upon for consultation by news media and other professionals as a result of their specialized expertise and deep experience in service delivery to children and adults affected by grief and trauma.

We have secured a five-year SAMHSA grant (for the prestigious National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative) to provide evidence-based interventions to children exposed to trauma as part of our Resilient Scholars program. This grant links us closely with a robust network of the most recognized, qualified and experienced professionals in children's mental health nationwide and puts us at the epicenter of current efforts to improve and deliver the best in trauma interventions to children and youth.

The Wendt Center has updated its technological capabilities to include integrated, state-of-the-art accounting and donor databases, as well as a new behavioral health database for clinicians that is integrated with our billing software. We have been strongly supported by local funders in these major infrastructure improvements.

The Wendt Center has made significant progress toward its strategic goals.

- We have implemented grief and trauma certification programs for mental health professionals and school-based mental health professionals that will build the capacity of the region to serve children, adults, and families impacted by grief and trauma.

- We have built a stronger infrastructure, that includes state-of-the-art technology across all of our operations and the hiring of a Chief Operating Officer.

- We have established major new relationships and are poised to assume greater national visibility in the near future.

- We have secured funding to provide additional training in the latest evidence-based interventions to our clinical staff, ensuring a menu of interventions that is responsive to the particular needs of our clients.

- We have accomplished significant work on the development, implementation, and reporting on clear, measurable outcomes that can objectively support our reputation for highly effective services.

- We continue to work to diversify our funding streams, increase our reserve, and increase those funding streams (insurance revenue, individual donations, for example) that tend to be most reliable and stable.