Several prominent figures arrived for the ceremonial ribbon cutting at Strategic Behavioral Health, leading to an abundance of smiles, handshakes and photo-ops.

But the people most likely to see life-changing benefits from the treatment facility don’t start arriving until the next week.

SBH’s Garner facility is a psychiatric residential treatment facility, or PRTF, meaning it accepts mental-health patients who need care for a period of months.

Such centers treat a variety of disorders – including severe depression, opposition defiant disorder and substance-abuse problems – with the goal of returning patients to their homes and reducing their treatment needs to outpatient care. “One area where there’s been a need is PRTF; that’s been a gap over the years,” said Rob Robinson, deputy director of Alliance Behavioral Health Care, the new agency that oversees mental-health care Wake and Durham counties.

“It’s costly to provide that level of care,” Robinson added. “It’s a hard business to get into. There’s a lot of risks associated with that level of care.”

Children in particular have had few places to go. Residential treatment centers in North Carolina house 300 or so children, and another 300 have left the state for care, said Dr. Jim Jarrard, director of mental health, developmental disabilities and substance abuse services for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Garner facility has 72 beds for residential care and 20 beds for acute care – patients in need of a few days of specific care.

“This is a win-win-win,” Al Delia, head of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, which also drew Garner’s mayor, council members and business leaders.

Delia said the center would help children and their families by providing accessible care near home.

It will also help the state by providing a much-needed service and Garner by creating jobs, he said.

Delia said he had spoken to SBH president Jim Shaheen about other locations in the state that might support a third SBH facility.

In addition to Garner, the company has a residential treatment center in Leland, near Wilmington.

Some children at the Leland treatment center will transfer to Garner, including some Wake County residents.

Both state officials and SBH say that close-to-home care and family involvement in the treatment process substantially improve outcomes.

Robinson said the SBH center could also avoid more-costly care at state psychiatric hospitals.

Jarrard said the state moved away from residential care about five years ago.

Around 2010, private PRTF centers started springing up to meet the resulting unmet need. A lot of the care had fallen on group homes, not all of which were up to the task.

Jarrard said one key to successful PRTF care is preparing the individual for a less-structured environment once he or she leaves the treatment center; some regress once they lose that structure.

Shaheen said his company’s clinical program and execution – the manner in which professionals intervene and prepare patients for re-entry into society – represent SBH’s greatest strengths.

Art Frankel, a researcher at UNC-Wilmington, has expressed surprise at the quality of outcomes produced at the Leland facility.

Robinson said in general, things are getting better for kids who need PRTF care. “Over the past few years – five to six years – children’s services have improved,” he aid. “Wake and Durham counties have invested a lot of time and energy into a system of care for children.”

The improvements had been needed. In 2001, reforms closed many government-run mental-health programs and downsized state mental hospitals in favor of private companies picking up the slack.

But state certification requirements for private provides were set low. In 2008, a News & Observer review found more than $400 million wasted on services either unneeded or never performed, with a later audit pushing the total over $500 million.

The state then cut reimbursement rates, prompting many quality providers to close or leave North Carolina. The state rolled out new, tougher requirements for providers in 2011.