In late October, ground was broken in Chatham County on a facility that will provide mental health care and treatment for the youth of Georgia.

Spearheaded by Gateway Community Service Board, and backed by Chatham County Government, the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, and the Georgia General Assembly, the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Campus in Chatham County seeks to provide hope, healing, and a brighter tomorrow for children and families in need.

The new campus will stand as a vital source of support for children and adolescents from across the state, offering inpatient and outpatient services for mental health issues and crisis stabilization in a modern, state-of-the-art facility.

“When you're talking about a young life, oftentimes it’s critical to get the right treatment at the right time so they don't perpetuate this issue of offending or ending up in trouble in school or at home. It also gives the families a sense of relief, a place to go,” Chatham County Commissioner Helen Stone said.

The new facility will be larger than the previous site in Bloomingdale, and its centralized location at 7 W. Magnolia Drive in Savannah will provide more options for families without private transportation.

“By building this new facility, we are able to connect more workers to the children that need the services, as well as serve the community in a more centrally located area and a new facility — a new, clean facility that's up to date to the standards of care that we hope to provide to all that we serve,” Phylicia Anderson, Chief Communications and Outreach Officer at Gateway, said.

And the facility will reach far beyond Chatham County, Anderson said, noting Chatham County often serves as a hub for behavioral health services from Effingham County all the way down to Glynn County, even state-wide at times.

The facility will help Gateway in its critical mission to intervene early in the lives of young people struggling with mental health issues and provide them with resources that could prevent future problems.

Anderson, citing the vision of the late Dr. Mark Johnson, former CEO of Gateway, said Johnson always believed early intervention could prevent future issues.

“If we are able to treat children, adolescents in the beginning of their lives, it will help prevent some of those persistent mental illnesses that can occur later,” Anderson said.