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In view of the current widespread interest throughout the country in establishing community mental health clinics, a circumstance in which the National Mental Health Act of 1946 is playing a significant, stimulating role, a detailed account of the preliminary community organization and planning preceding the opening of the Prince Georges County MIental Health Clinic might be useful. When it became evident that Federal funds would become available to State mental hlealtlh authorities to "develop adequate mental health programs, particularly in the fields of early prevention and treatment," NMaryland, at the legislative session of 1947, enacted a bill providing for a mental healtli program to be administrated and supervised by the State Board of Healtlh. The State Board of Health then ordered that a division of mental hygiene be establislhed in the State Department of Healtlh. From the beginning the new division, in endeavoring to develop mental health facilities, has assumed that mental hygiene will take its place in preventive inedicine along with all the other functions of a well-organized, comprehensive public health program and that the clinics will be held under general arrangements with the county health officer who will determine the location, the necessity and extent of service, and act as the liaison between community and clinic. It is expected that the clinics will be centers of in-service training in the health department so that the principles of mental hygiene will be used in all the services of the department eventually, from the prenatal program to the hospitals for the chronically ill. At the outset the amount of money available for establishing community facilities for the early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of all types of emotional disorders was limited. When confronted with wTidespread and urgent need for a new service on the one hand, and insufficient funds and professional personnel on the other, the problem of how and where to start is always a difficult one.

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