Bartonville celebrates the opening of a new therapy center
Written by Giavana Escobedo on August 21, 2025
Image Courtesy of Illinois State University
BARTONVILLE, Ill. – Lifelong Access marked the opening of its new autism and youth mental health center with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday evening.
Lifelong Access, already established in Normal, had long planned to expand west to broaden autism care and therapy services. Other services include behavioral and mental health care.
Dan Ramos, former special education administrator said that expansion would help families who do not have therapy care accessible to them. He explained how there was a large demand for care services between the Bloomington and Peoria area.
“We looked westward because we identified that there was a service desert between the Bloomington and Peoria area… we wanted to look at areas that were easily accessible to many different towns, not just Bartonville. We also wanted to see what the demand was like there for our services.”
Ramos said that the services are available to children of all ages, even if they are not old enough to be in school yet.
“We’re going to be bringing in autism services for our kiddos in the community to help those on the spectrum. We’re also going to have some behavioral health services, as well as tackling all different types of mental health issues that are going on. We’ve got two therapists here and a couple of staff members that are going to make that possible.”
Ramos added that the center will also provide mental health services for adults, offering support tailored to both short-term and long-term goals.
“We’re going to have the behavioral health clinic where a mental health professional work with adolescents and adults, whether they need just a little bit of support to go through their day-to-day and week-to-week or something that is want to work on long term.”
In-person and virtual services are available to anyone and the Bartonville center is now open.
