Townhall II, a Portage County mental health and recovery organization, has expanded into Ravenna.
The new office can be found at 520 N. Chestnut St. It will be more accessible to clients who do not live near the current Kent office, said CEO Tamera Hunter.
Hunter said the expansion came as a result of research conducted for the Community Health Improvement Plan. It showed that Ravenna and Windham were in the deepest need of behavioral health services.
“It’s something that we’ve always felt was needed,” Hunter said. “There’s so many clients that need to be served.”
Marketing Director Kevin Brosien said the organization is working to get accreditation for the new office to offer all the same services as the old. Currently, it houses the prevention team, which works with all Portage County school districts.
The team works to provide school-based educational services on topics like substance abuse prevention, addiction prevention and suicide prevention, Hunter said.
Hunter said she is working to add general psychiatry to the new office, an area that the organization placed more focus on after the Covid-19 pandemic.
“There’s just so much trauma and anxiety and depression that came as a result of Covid that we really saw the need to move into the mental health space,” Hunter said. “Some 90% of our clients that we treat have trauma as an underlying indicator of their illness, whether it be substance abuse or mental health condition.”
Hunter said that if there is an unmet need in the community, the organization tries to figure out a way to help.
Its other services include a 24/7 suicide crisis lifeline, both group and individual counseling, an overdose response team and victim of crime advocacy.
“I am very optimistic about the future of Townhall II and the future of Portage County,” Hunter said. “I am really looking forward to us being able to help the community more because the need is so great.”