Community Mental Health Act Of 1963: Article Analysis

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Imagine suffering from a mental illness and then being placed in an institution where it seems as though no one really cares about you? You’re neglected and abused on a daily basis and you aren’t receiving the proper treatment to help with your mental illness. For many years, thousands of Americans who suffered from mental illnesses, were placed in mental institutions and left untreated. President John F. Kennedy saw a need for change regarding mental health institutions and in 1963, he signed the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act of 1963. This particular act was supposed to signal changes in the treatment of mental disorders (Murphy & Rigg, 2014). The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 …show more content…

President Kennedy’s rhetoric for signing this bill was mind-blowing and straight to the point. In his speech, President Kennedy argued that, “the mentally ill and the mentally retarded need no longer be alien to our affections or beyond the help of our communities (as cited in Kennedy & Fried, 2015, p.29). This statement proved that President Kennedy was unhappy with the way that individuals with mental illnesses were being treated and he was going to do whatever he could to ensure that they received proper treatment. In John F. Kennedy’s defense, during this time period it was harder to determine the difference between intellectual disability and severe mental illness, which means that individuals who suffered from one of the other (and sometimes both) were all being “warehoused” in the same shamefully run institutions (2015, p.29). Just days prior, John F. Kennedy signed the Maternal and Child Health and Mental Retardation Planning Amendment, which was the first major national legislation to combat mental illness and mental retardation (Kofman, …show more content…

The Community Mental Health Act of 1963, which targeted those with mental illness, authorized funding of about $330 million over a five-year period to provide grants for: a. the construction of research centers and facilities related to mental retardation; b. construction and establishment of community mental health centers; and c. training for teachers who taught handicapped children (Department of Health, Education, and Welfare,

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