Origin Story: Founded, Circa 1977
Beneath the historical surface of its starting point, the conception of Wellspring was like any other - a moment in time, a place where genealogical lines converge, and where among all possible events that could have taken place, this one did.
Drs. Richard and Phyllis Beauvais had a dream...
…to establish a home-like long term residential treatment center for people with mental health challenges or psychiatric illnesses. They purchased a tract of farmland with a colonial era farmhouse, barns, pastures and grazing animals in a bucolic landscape in Bethlehem, CT in 1977 and began their work as pioneers of the relational and restorative model.
Our History
Our vision was to establish a home-like mental health residential treatment center with a highly structured but intimate approach for people with serious emotional, psychiatric, and behavioral challenges. In 1977, we purchased a tract of farmland with a colonial era farmhouse, barns, pastures, grazing animals and a bucolic landscape in Bethlehem, CT.
As pioneers of the relational and restorative model, we believed that to make long term, significant change, we would offer shared experiences of daily life and relationship – i.e. work, study, play and sharing meals together – joined with therapeutic modalities such as individual therapy, group therapies, family therapies & training, expressive therapy, art therapy, adventure programming and animal and land based programs.
These clinical interventions became centered by a milieu based model where the educational, milieu, and nursing staff all worked together to support our residents.
While our first residents were young adults who struggled with serious mental health issues, our vision proved to be successful and clients began to heal. Over time, Wellspring became a stable home base from which we could offer long term mental health residential programs for girls and young adult women and school programs for adolescents.
Family involvement was a cornerstone of Wellspring’s relational approach to treatment and education. Without the family’s willingness to learn new skills and make necessary changes in the family system, individuals were unlikely to sustain the gains they worked so hard to earn. The willingness on the part of the family required committed involvement in the treatment and learning process.
“Like any child, or any destiny, we simply meet what unfolds before us, holding fast to our values and intentions to heal.
— Richard & Phyllis Beauvais, Co-Founders of Wellspring
The Founding of the Arch Bridge School
Accredited by NEASC-a globally recognized standard of excellence for education
In the summer of 1990, we founded The Arch Bridge School, Wellspring’s private special education school. The school evolved quickly over the next several years as the number of younger residents increased and the need for more structured academic services became apparent. To serve the needs of these residents, we built a campus-based therapeutic school and expanded the school to include the underserved population of special education and emotionally challenged day students from local school districts. In 1997, the school was approved by the State of Connecticut as a Private Special Education Facility, and is also approved by the state of New York, and New Jersey and Massachusetts on a case by case basis.
Click here for the current Arch Bridge School program information.
“Educationally and emotionally, the Arch Bridge School is on the leading edge in many of their philosophies and designs. Culturally, Arch Bridge's family atmosphere and unyielding commitment to excellence would be the envy of most schools.
— NEASC
