Art therapy in Akron Children’s Intensive Outpatient Program
Akron Children’s Division of Pediatric Psychiatry and Psychology now offers the Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) on our Boardman campus, completing the continuum of behavioral health care for children and adolescents in the Mahoning Valley.
The program is currently offered 1:15 to 4:30 pm but in January it will settle into its permanent time slot of Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3:15 to 6:30 pm. It’s designed to be an after-school program for adolescents 12 to 18 with a primary concern of depression and/or anxiety. It focuses on short-term stabilization to help at-risk youth improve functioning and develop healthy coping skills.
“Candidates for this program are adolescents who are stepping down from our inpatient behavioral health unit or Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) or those who need a higher level of care than outpatient therapy,” said Christine Curry, clinical operations supervisor for Intensive Services and Outpatient Therapy – Eastern Region.
Participants could be stepping down following safety concerns, such as suicide ideation, or working to integrate back into their daily functioning. They usually complete IOP in 4 to 6 weeks.
“IOP uses evidence-based interventions like dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT),” said Curry. “Each day, participants work on a different set of skills that may focus on anything from interpersonal communication to regulating emotions or improving distress tolerance. Sessions include yoga to focus on mindfulness and physical wellness and art and other expressive therapies to give participants various outlets for self-expression.”
The addition of IOP completes the planned roll-out of behavioral health programming on Akron Children’s campus in Boardman. This includes the Psychiatric Intake Response Center (PIRC) located in the emergency department for children and teens in a behavioral health crisis. The Boardman campus also offers outpatient therapy, medication management and PHP, which is a full-day, intensive program designed to keep teens out of the behavioral health inpatient unit or transition them back to home after discharge from the unit. Like IOP, the goal is to help participants develop lifelong skills.
In addition to these programs, Akron Children’s has mental health therapists located within nearly all of its 44 pediatric primary care offices to provide a “warm hand-off” to patients in need of a referral and to remove barriers and the stigma associated with behavioral health services.
The Mahoning Valley IOP program is located in Building E, 6614 Southern Blvd. in Boardman.
A physician referral is not required. Parents can request an assessment/self-referral by calling the intake line at 330-543-5015, selecting option 1, and indicating they are calling for “Mahoning Valley IOP.”
