A Long Range Plan for Mental Health Services in California

Comprehensive Centers for the Mentally Retarded

“…It called for retardation to be designated as a special function of local health and welfare planning councils and for a state-level council of public and private agencies to be developed to support local activities and state-wide planning. It assigned to the State Department of Mental Hygiene responsibility for: (1) providing statewide leadership in defining the mental health and psychiatric services relevant to mental retardation; (2) fostering the application of genetic principles, of prenatal and perinatal practices to reduce prematurity and birth injuries, and to facilitate the early detection and control of metabolic disorders; (3) supporting and encouraging research about the causes and prevention of mental retardation; (4) disseminating through its own resources as well as through education, public health, social welfare, and other resources reliable information to case-finding professions and to the general public concerning the detection, prevention, and management of mental retardation; (5) providing mental health consultation to those persons and agencies serving the retarded and their families; and (6) encouraging the development of private and local governmental services as alternatives to hospitalization and extending its own use of such suitable alternatives to state hospital care.…”