It is hard to find a health care location that can deliver multiple services but Townhall II, a non-profit agency providing integrated health care services to Portage County, has come close. Townhall II hosted a grand opening of its newest location in Ravenna last Wednesday morning.
“With Ravenna and Windham being the center of community health and improvement plans, we really needed to expand services here into the Ravenna area,” CEO Tamera Hunter told The Weekly Villager. “I am excited to be here and I think the community is excited and we are here to help whoever needs it.”
Townhall II’s newest location is a two-floor facility which will offer prevention services upstairs and downstairs will be where counseling and substance abuse treatment is offered. The prevention services are active at the Ravenna location but Townhall II is waiting for accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities before the counseling services can be offered.
In addition to the two-floor office, Townhall II is also opening a building next door that will provide psychiatric and primary health care services. Hunter added that organization’s plans were to open the building next door sometime in the next three months.
According to Hunter, individuals will have access to a variety of health and mental care treatments all in just one stop.
“I think it is going to be a gamechanger for Portage County but specifically for the Ravenna folks,” she noted. “The more that we can integrate and provide holistic care, I think the better care we are going to be able to provide for our clients.”
Hunter acknowledged this was the first Townhall II facility that offers prevention and counseling services in the same building. She said that she thought it was critical that if the organization was working within the school district and if a child needed help, they could also offer counseling services and the departments could collaborate and work together on a treatment plan.
Having always specialized in trauma treatment and holistic care, Town Hall II’s newest location was another step in its efforts to expand its mental health services.
“We have expanded into the mental health field,” Hunter said. “We have been doing mental health for a long time, but we have expanded and added more therapists over the past couple of years and now I have Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing certified therapists that specifically work with trauma. We are working on an accreditation for the sanctuary model of trauma informed care so we are all going to be able to have the idea that when someone walks in the door we want people to feel loved and feel safe when they come in the door and that is what sanctuary helps build.”
Hunter said Townhall II’s newest office was previously the location of Children’s Advantage, a mental health service organization but the property was owned by the Portage County Mental Health & Recovery Board. After Children’s Advantage moved, the Board offered the building to Townhall II to lease. Hunter said that the organization’s lease agreement with the Board is year to year but expects its newest location to be a permanent one for the foreseeable future.
“We have such a great relationship with our Mental Health & Recovery Board” she added, “I think it is better than any of the other relationships I have seen at the other systems I have worked in and for. They are great and supportive, and I can see us being here for another 50 years.”
While hosting the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Hunter shared some words of appreciation to Townhall II’s Board, other organizations and individuals who assisted in helping with the move.
“You are fabulous, and we are here for all of you,” she said. “If there is something in Portage County that is missing or a gap we can fill, we are here for all of you.”
According to Marketing Director Kevin Brosien, Townhall II’s new office allowed it to be more accessible to the citizens of Portage County and neighboring counties.
“We know that there are a lot of people from that outlier areas of Portage County that have trouble getting to Kent,” he told The Weekly Villager. “We do get people coming from outside the county as well and it is another location to provide services so all of these services are necessary for a lot of people so the more places we can get out to the better.”
Hunter would not guarantee that Townhall II would continue expanding into Ravenna but said that the organization would continue to grow wherever it was needed.
