Text: Pages 250 and 251

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy, as part of his New Frontier initiative, heralded the beginning of the community mental health movement. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 provided funding for hundreds of community mental health and research centers throughout the United States. Kennedy urged mental health professionals to leave their large institutions, universities, and state hospitals, and develop community treatment that provided individuals with mental illness a quality life in their home communities; to finally unlock the chains of mental illness by the experience of a loving, supportive community.