MHY: The Ins and Outs

The Ins and outs of MHY

Mars Home for Youth was opened in 1878 by a group of women coming from the Presbyterian churches in Pittsburgh and Allegheny, now Pittsburgh’s north side. They first opened MHY with all volunteers to help serve families suffering from death or poverty and struggled to take care of their children. Very quickly MHY was known as “The Home” and was taking care of an average of 75 children on its campus. Over the years from 1929 to 2014 MHY has evolved to the needs and demands of the children in their community. Now MHY receives accreditation from COA making the facility well-known for its excellence in human services.

On the MHY campus today there is the administrative building where all the office workers like HR and the nurse’s offices are. In this building, there is also storage where most of the donations are held. MHY receives thousands of donations a year and it allows them to give each child their own bedding set, pillow, wash clothes and towels, plus new clothes and shoes if they need them. The clothes are held in what is called the Ginger store, this is just a little house that is organized by sizes so the kids can come in and feel like they are shopping for new clothes.

There are six units that can host children, three of which are in active use. There is Gilf, Wardle, Ryman, Collins, Eich, and Sloan. All of the units are named after the ladies that started MHY back in 1878. Gilf and Eich are closed for renovations at the moment and will receive children once they are finished and the programs designed for the kids are complete. Sloan is an RTF for girls and has plans to be opened by the end of September and able to take ten girls into the program. Wardle is an RTF a long-term care center, all the boys currently on Wardle must have a diagnosis of sexual fixation in order to be allowed into the treatment program. Though every boy on Wardle has a sexual fixation, no other child on the campus is allowed to know about it to protect the boys on Wardle. These boys in the RTF can be here on campus for one year to two years.

The other two units, Ryman and Collins, are both Das units, which stands for Diversion acute stabilization, this program is short keeping the kids for no longer than a month. The average stay is 28 days on the DAS units so during the summer months alone lots of kids will cycle through the program. This also means there is a chance that the kids can come back if their re-emersion into their regular day to day didn’t go as planned, They can only return three times before they are required to go to another stabilization program. These units can hold up to ten kids on each unit with equal numbers of boys and girls, five and five.

Every unit with children on it is staffed 24/7 360 days a year, there will be three rotations of staff that will work with the kids in a 24-hour period. With each rotation there is always one staff member for four kids, the government regulation is one staff member to six kids but MHY prefers to be over prepared than under. Each rotation of staff will work eight hours before switching off. 

There is one last cottage on the campus called Bartman and it is where all the therapist have their offices. Each child living on MHY’s campus will have a therapist who they see in person for private sessions several times per week. The kids will also receive group therapy with a therapist on their unit several times a week.

The campus also has several areas to help provide entertainment and room for exercise for the kids throughout the day. This includes a lake with a hiking trail, an outdoor sports court, and indoor gym with a full basketball court, an in-ground swimming pool and a kickball court. The campus its self, has a paved loop that’s about half a mile and when it has been raining and the  hiking trail is too muddy to walk on the staff will take kids around the loop a few times.

Overall, kids come to MHY to help them transition back into normal life. With the way the campus is set up, MHY’s employees can help the kids participate in many everyday activates to ease the transition. The goal is to have a calming atmosphere here on the campus, especially with all the buildings looking like cottages, it feels safer rather than sterile like a hospital. MHY is a place of calmness which encourages growth and change.