Wayne Center

The Wayne Center Story

Wayne Center was incorporated in June of 1973, after a group of concerned parents of institutionalized residents advocated for a program of community living for their children. In the early years of the Agency, focus was on the developmental of transitional residential programs for individuals who moved from the State institutions back to community settings. Foster Family Care and large group homes were established. The second major development was residential settings for children and adults with developmental disabilities who moved from their family homes to more independent settings.

Today, Wayne Center, a fee for service Agency for Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Alliance. The agency provides supports and services to over 1000 persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, defined by the Mental Health Code as mental retardation, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, autism or severe dyslexia. Placement efforts today focus primarily on placing persons into self-determined settings in the community. Our service population ranges in age from 10 months to 87 years and our continuum of services begins with our Children’s Foster Care program and extends to persons living independently in their own home settings. We work with residential settings that include Children’s Foster Homes, Adult Foster Care Homes, Foster Family homes, and an Acute Crisis Intervention Home.

Although the mandates of managed care and revisions of the Michigan Mental Health Code created uncertainties for both providers of supports and services and individuals being served by the system. Wayne Center has remained focused on positive outcomes of managed care and the Code revisions; outcomes that make a real difference in the lives of the people we support. Managed Care is “managed cost” and Wayne Center recognizes the need to be cost and quality effective.