LEBANON — Dartmouth Health will begin accepting patients to a new inpatient psychiatric ward for teenagers next week amid a rising need for mental health services nationwide.

The $3.2 million project, funded through the health network’s capital budget and unveiled in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center Tuesday, is the first pediatric psychiatry ward the hospital has ever had. Dartmouth Health, the health care system to which DHMC belongs, also recently took over Hampstead Hospital in southern New Hampshire, the state’s only pediatric psychiatric hospital.

The ward at the DHMC campus is a six-bed unit for 12- to 17-year-olds. The unit will target children with other medical needs who can benefit from its location inside of the larger DHMC campus, Director of Nursing for Psychiatry Lorene Zammuto said in an interview after the ceremony Tuesday.

There are only two similar units in New England that are inside of hospitals — one at Brown University’s Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Rhode Island and at Boston Children’s Hospital — Dr. Keith Loud, physician-in-chief for Dartmouth Children’s, said during the event.

“The need in northern New England is always dire,” Loud said.

In New Hampshire’s 10-year mental health plan released in 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services, or DHHS, recognized an increased need for mental health services statewide, with a significant need in rural areas like much of the Upper Valley.

“Before this unit, families in our region had limited access to dedicated inpatient psychiatric beds, often requiring transfers far from home,” DHMC Chief Operating Officer Tom Manion said.

Zammuto said DH will prioritize treating patients from New Hampshire “first and foremost” in the new unit, which will make it easier for families to visit their children and keep patients in the same community as their “primary support systems.”

In New Hampshire, the DHHS identifies 71 inpatient psychiatric beds for children, all of which are at Hampstead Hospital and 39 of which were “offline” as of Monday. Also on Monday, there were 16 children in New Hampshire waiting for admission to an inpatient mental health facility.

In Vermont, there are 47 inpatient psychiatric beds for youth recognized by the state, according to the state Department of Mental Health’s online tracking system.

Kids with more “acute” needs, such as violent tendencies or “behaviors associated with recent crimes” are still likely to receive the best treatment at a facility such as Hampstead, but the DHMC unit can support patients experiencing less severe mental health crises who also have other medical issues, Zammuto said.

The newly renovated unit on DHMC’s second floor, not far from the main lobby, takes the place of a since-relocated adult psychiatric unit. It includes six single-bed rooms surrounding a central common area and treatment spaces.

Patients will typically stay for 10 to 15 days, Zammuto said. They will start their days at 8 a.m., followed by breakfast and a community meeting before going into individual and group treatment sessions focused on topics such as learning coping skills or participating in animal and art therapy.

“What we’re really trying to do here is not fix everything,” Zammuto said. “… If we can help them strengthen even just one coping skill while they’re here (and) that gives them a shot of staying in sports, or having a more healthy and positive relationship with their family then that’s what the goal is.”

The new Dartmouth unit aims to address a shortage of mental health care in the Upper Valley and more broadly.

Despite some recent progress to increase availability and accessibility of mental health resources, Alice Ely, executive director of the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley, said Wednesday that there are still not enough regional mental health resources, especially for kids.

While she said she is “thrilled” about the DHMC unit opening, one of Ely’s biggest areas of concern is the lack of sufficient resources to support children before they need to be hospitalized.

“You will get so many stories of families that struggle to find care and support for their kids for years before they got to the place where they were desperate and their child required hospitalization,” Ely said.

The shortage of mental health resources also often causes patients to get “mismatched care.”

“We wouldn’t want to give somebody too much insulin or put them on kidney dialysis when they don’t need that simply because other care is not available,” Ely said.

One area where local children can access those early intervention mental health resources is through school districts. Mascoma Valley Regional School District social worker Lyndsay Porreca said her district prioritizes mental health and providing as many resources to students and families as possible. The district often partners with health care providers such as Dartmouth Health and HealthFirst Family Care Center, which has a location in Canaan.

But, Porreca said, there are barriers when it comes to providing mental health support. Mostly these are “systems issues… beyond anything that we have control over.”

Such challenges, which go far beyond the Upper Valley, including the lack of mental health facilities, limitations in insurance coverage, a shortage of clinicians and legislative barriers tie the hands of local support systems, Porreca said.

Clare Shanahan can be reached at cshanahan@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.