Creating equitable access to mental health services in the City of Pittsburgh
Our Team
Alexis Werner, Executive Director
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Alexis started her work in social justice at the age of 14 when she joined the Youth Advocacy League. She led projects to provide solutions to our communities most pressing challenges including racial, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic inequities. At the age of 15 she founded a program called Seeds of Hope to provide aid, access, and awareness for military veterans struggling with Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) as well as resources for their families. She led a national garden project for veterans with PTS spanning 15 states, helped to produce a children’s book on the importance of veteran appreciation and volunteerism, and produced a documentary film called Our Way Home. She attended Temple University where she studied Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Alexis believes in the power and validity of every person’s story- to speak one’s truth. If youth can understand themselves, they can change their behaviors and thought patterns, and change the world.
Gregg Dietz, Director of Programming
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Gregg Dietz M.A., M.Ed. specializes in prevention and intervention work in public schools with students in grades 5-12. He has also facilitated groups for college students, both at the University of Pittsburgh and at Point Park College as the mental health therapist. His areas of expertise are group work, drug and alcohol prevention, violence prevention, and organizational leadership and social change. Gregg has presented at over 200 national and local conferences. He has conducted over 40 in-services for school districts nationwide.
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He is an artist who has been schooled in the areas of sculpture and painting. Both personally and professionally, Gregg strives to enrich the connection between the body, mind, and spirit. He has worked for the MAPS Program at the University of Pittsburgh and counseled over 10,000 young people since 1983.
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Our Board of Directors
Roman Benty, Director of Outreach
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Roman felt his first connection to social justice work through time in the Youth Advocacy League where he collaborated with Alexis and Gregg to write the children’s book “Seeds of Hope: The Beginning,” and where he began working with a group of community volunteers to build the first ever library in the working-class town of Millvale, Pennsylvania. Throughout his time at the University of Pittsburgh he earned degrees in Fiction Writing and Urban Studies. Roman started the first ever youth programs at the Millvale Community Library as a volunteer and has been creating new programs since 2016. Since finishing his undergraduate degrees, Roman has worked as the Youth Program Director at the Millvale Community Library developing curriculum that emphasizes youth voice, critical thinking, and creative expression.