Grace Epperly, development coordinator for Wesley House Family Services joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the organization.
Wesley House is a child welfare nonprofit organization.
Epperly said, “We service all of the Florida Keys, all of Monroe County, and then even a little bit into South Miami area, Homestead, Florida City area, we provide foster care for the Florida Keys. So when a child needs to be removed from their home to keep them safe, we place them in a licensed foster home. We also license the foster parents. We have adoption services for children who are not able to be reunified with their family. Also included in full case management is our independent living program that is where we work with teens, ages 13 to 17, and help them have those skills, gain those skills to become independent, particularly if they age out of the foster care system.”
There is also a nurturing parenting program.
Epperly said, “That is a great resource for parents that are associated with the full case management and working through the issues to help them be a better parent, help them solve problems at home, help them rely on some tried and true skills when times get tough with the kids, and then they can think back and it’s really great because our nurturing parent coordinator, she really meets you where you’re at and addresses your individual problems. It’s not a group setting, it’s an individual setting. So she meets the parents where they’re at, what really are the issues that they’re dealing with, and then she helps you figure it out in a way that really makes sense and helps you also really realize, like, okay, this is where my child’s mind is right now. Because often we’re thinking in an adult way of thinking, and we’re not empathizing with the way our children are thinking. So she really makes it make sense. And I think it’s a really great resource”
Healthy Families is a free voluntary program.
Epperly said, “That is open to anyone who is pregnant or their children are three months or less. It’s a great preventative program. It really provides a lot of support for the families. We have wonderful family support workers who go into the homes when the child is a baby. They go in about once a week, sometimes twice a week, and then it tapers off as the child gets older. Then we work with that family until that child, the enrolled child, which we call the focus child, is age five. So there’s not a lot of programs where you’re going to stay with that one family for five years. Recently, we actually just had, in the last month, we had two families graduate the Healthy Families program. So the skills and the knowledge that they’ve gained, and that first five years of their child’s life is so valuable, and they’re going to carry that through the rest of raising their children. So it’s a really, really great program.”
There is also the Inez Martin Child Development Center preschool in Key West.
Epperly said, “That’s two to five and we are very excited. Next week we’re going to celebrate the class of 2025 graduates. We’re going to do a nice little graduation ceremony at Williams Hall. And then we are also very excited to announce with Inez Martin that they received a score of excellent in the ’23, ‘24 VPK performance metrics for the Florida Department of Education and the Division of early learning. So this is huge. There were only, I believe, three or four schools in all of Monroe County that earned that rating. And Inez Martin was the only one in the Lower Keys to earn that rating. So we’re very, very proud of that.”
It’s a great educational and developmental experience for preschoolers.
Epperly added, “We also provide a free breakfast and lunch and a snack to the children at no cost to the families. We also have the weekend backpack program, where we do send healthy snacks home for any child in the school that may need some extra assistance over the weekend. We also provide enough food for any siblings in the home to have some extra snacks over the weekend. A lot of this is from the generosity of our donors. So we’re very blessed to be able to provide the backpack program to our kids, and then again, the food, the lunch, the nutritious meals, the breakfast for lunch and snacks at no cost to the families. That is through our donors, and we’re so grateful for that.”
Are there any spaces open for the fall?
Epperly said, “I know that they do have some space in some of the classes. It’s all kind of based on the ages of the children and when they turned the next age. So it starts at age two. But if they have a lot of younger twos, two year olds, they’re going to group those together versus older twos. So they kind of position it that way, it is best to call the school, which is 305-809-5055, and they give you the information of what ages they have availability for.”
For more information, click here: https://www.wesleyhouse.org/