Dr. Steven Jewell, director of pediatric psychiatry and psychology at akron children's hospital, talks about the system's expanded behavioral health center Tuesday in Boardman. The center will begin seeing patients next week.

BOARDMAN — Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley will offer an expanded behavioral health program to area children, adolescents and teens starting Tuesday to address a growing need for those services.

The newly renovated building at the system’s Beeghly Campus has space for group sessions and nine therapy rooms, and allows Akron Children’s to double the number of behavioral health patient visits within the first year.

“Having a dedicated space specially designed for the programs and services we offer is one way we hope to make navigating the search for mental health help easier for parents and their children,” said Dr. Steven Jewell, director of pediatric psychiatry and psychology for Akron Children’s.

Jewell on Wednesday led the media on a tour of the facility, which will also have a partial hospitalization program for patients who need more intensive outpatient treatment, in addition to mental health and psychiatry services. The project cost $2.3 million.

“For some kids this would be a step up from outpatient … they would step into this program, restabilize and go back into outpatient,” Jewell said. “For other kids, this would be a step down from inpatient.”

Patients in the partial hospital program will spend all day in the program and be home in time for dinner. It’s typical for participants to spend at least two weeks in the program, which includes goal-setting, family therapy and some school.

The first hour will be school with the rest of the time devoted to therapeutic activities, including psychotherapy and psychiatry, but also also expressive therapies such as art, writing and yoga.

“There are some kids who can really talk their feelings out and express themselves verbally. There are other who really struggle to do that so we provide art therapy,” said Doug Straight, clinical operations director with Akron Children’s. “So it’s another way of expressing yourself without having to verbalize it.”

It will be ready for some patients on Tuesday, with more by Jan. 7.

The hospital is working with the Mahoning County Educational Service Center to provide a teacher for the program.

The system provides the same program at its Akron campus.

That’s where Paige Schantz, of Boardman, took her teenage son. She said she took off a week of work so he could participate in the partial hospitalization program there, but could not get a second week off, which meant he went to only some of the program.

“If it would have been here, it would have been huge,” said Schantz, who works in radiology in the emergency room at the Beeghly location.

“I would drive him there every morning, be there at 7:30 (a.m.). I would sit in the lobby like this and wait for eight hours for him to be done then I would drive him back home,” she said.

The behavioral health center expanded into the former Youngstown Hearing and Speech building on Southern Boulevard. It also has an assessment room and staff offices.

Included in the facility is a decompression zone in a alcove with an egg-shaped chair for patients who need a break to retreat and ligature resistant hardware to prevent self-harm. In addition, emergency buttons are in each room.

The expansion will add about 12 new jobs at the hospital.