About Us
The Diakon Wilderness Center is part of Diakon Youth Services. Since the 1970s, Diakon Youth Services, formerly known as TresslerCare, has been a leading
provider of specialized services for children and youths from across Pennsylvania. Primarily
serving at-risk youths referred by county juvenile probation departments or children and
youth services, Diakon Youth Services offers a unique and rich array of services designed
to help:
- Dependent youths attain permanency, safety, and well-being, and
- Delinquent youths learn the need for accountability, community protection,
and the development of competencies for responsible, successful living embodied in
the principles of Balanced and Restorative Justice.
Diakon Youth Services’ goal is to build good citizens while strengthening families.
Continuing A History of Service
Diakon Youth Services’ tradition of service to children and youths dates to the 1800s,
when the Lutheran church established orphanages to care for children, some left homeless by
the Civil War. Today, nearly a century and a half later, Diakon Youth Services directly
carries on the heritage of care begun by two of those children’s homes—the Tressler Orphans
Home in Loysville, Pa., and The Lutheran Home at Topton, Pa.
Diakon Youth Services and the Diakon Wilderness Center embody a mission to bring
wholeness to children, families, and communities. Our vision is to be an industry leader in
providing compassionate, quality care to children and families. Our culture embraces every
opportunity for growth through development of new services and enhancement of existing programs.
In striving to be the provider of choice for youth services, Diakon Youth Services frequently
develops new programs in response to a community’s individual needs. The Diakon Wilderness Center,
which helped to pioneer outdoor and adventure-based programming, is just one
example of a service created to meet unique needs.
Offering A Rich Array of Services
Diakon Youth Services stands at the forefront today because it understands and responds to
issues facing youths and their families. Diakon Youth Services and the Diakon Wilderness Center deliver effective therapeutic services
and interventions that work collaboratively to meet the individual needs of children and
adolescents, strengthen their families, and enhance the quality of community life. Diakon Youth Services encompasses a range of programs focused on a continuum of care:
- A leader in this field since 1988, Diakon Family Life Services – Capital Region offers Specialized Outpatient Counseling to children and youths with sexual behavior and offending problems, allowing them to remain at home while they learn to accept responsibility for sexual acting-out behaviors, identify risk factors, and develop self-control.
- Diakon Adoption & Foster Care, with multiple offices in both central and eastern Pennsylvania, emphasizes caring and supportive foster families, highly trained, professional case managers, and specialized treatment and interventions. Tiered levels of care, based on frequency and intensity of services needed, are available. Permanency planning for children is emphasized through specialized Fost/Adopt, Kinship Care, and Adoption services.
- Beginning in the early 1980s as a powerful, adventure-based intervention for delinquent and dependent adolescents, the Diakon Wilderness Center offers a series of programs designed to help young people become productive members of society. Whether enrolled in the Weekend Alternative Program, the Wilderness Challenge Program, or the Center Point Day Treatment program, youths learn to overcome adversity in an unfamiliar-and often unpredictable-environment by conquering demanding emotional and physical challenges. Education and treatment services underscore the lessons of these challenges, helping youths to discover the strength and courage to become more than they thought possible.
- Additional specialized services, such as the Bridge Program and the Turning Point evening drop-in center, have been developed to help counties address local challenges.
With services available across much of Pennsylvania, Diakon Youth Services proves it
is possible to help at-risk youths overcome the challenges they face and lead stable, healthy,
and productive lives . . . learning responsibility . . . accepting accountability . . .
creating community.