The Beloit Residential Treatment Center, 1323 Northwestern Ave., has been awarded $500,000 to expand the services it provides to children in the community who are in need of psychiatric care.

Tina Hoffman, communications director for the Iowa Department of Economic Development, said the $500,000 in funding being given to the Beloit Residential Treatment Center was granted through a federal government program — the Community Development Block Grant program — which is administered by the Iowa Department of Economic Development on the local level.

“This program is a huge resource in terms of community development in Iowa,” Hoffman said.

She said the money came from a specific fund, the Community Facility and Services Fund, which is directed toward benefiting lower- and middle-income people.

“It’s a brick-and-mortar type of award for construction,” Hoffman said.

The award will enable the center to build what Hoffman said is a 48-bed, 29,000-square foot building that will help more patients than it can currently house.

The center won the award by meeting the requirements of the Community Facility and Services Fund. Those requirements included the magnitude of need of aid for the project, how well the block grant funds will be leveraged by other funds, the readiness and feasibility of the project and the amount of people who could benefit from the project.

In addition to the $500,000 award, Hoffman said more than $2 million will be given to the project by Lutheran Services in Iowa, which will help meet the $3.1 million amount needed for the project.

Trisha Highland, service coordinator for the Beloit Residential Treatment Center, said the $500,000 the center will receive will enable it to increase the number of people it can house to 60 patients from 32.

She said the total amount gained will help the construction of the new facility, which will be completed in about eight months.

“Half the new facility will be used for psychiatric medical treatment, and half will be used for resident beds, but we will take in the same type of people,” Highland said.

Highland said the center is a psychiatric medical institution for children ages 6 through 13. She said the center currently houses 32 children, who generally stay for a period of nine months to a year, while providing these children with help through medication as well as individual and group therapy.

The goal of the center is to prepare patients to go back into a family environment, which may be either the children’s original family, a foster home or another environment. Highland said the center takes in children from all of Iowa’s counties, many of whom are placed in the center by court order.

Highland said the funding the center has received for the new facility is helpful, but will not be enough for many children in need.

“Our goals are so high, but unfortunately there are eight to 10 facilities like ours in the state with a total of 200 patients on waiting lists to enter,” Highland said. “There is so much need, but this certainly helps.”