COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION-A DYNAMIC COMPONENT OF COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH PRACTICE

Community mental health practice is a new and rapidly growing public health field. It consists of theory and practice derived from both clinical psychiatry and public health. In Massachusetts, the program which we are developing consists of three parts. We call it a “three-phase’’ balanced program. The existence of one part is not sufficient, for each part is dependent upon the other. The three parts are mental health education, mental health consultation and clinical services. Mental health education may be thought of as primarily for the purpose of promoting mental health, giving community groups general and specific knowledge about the field of human relations and mental health. Mental health consultation represents the systematic development of consultation relationships with key individuals in social systems concerned with families and growing children. Clinical services form the bulwark of the community mental health program, just as clinical facilities are most important in the broad field of public health. We can get nowhere with the development of this three-phase mental health program unless we develop the essential machinery for applying the program to the community. In Massachusetts, the participation of the community itself in the development of the machinery is done through the formation, growth and development of organized mental health associations in the various areas of the state. The local mental health association represents the emotional involvement of the community, with its enthusiasms and resistances, only if it is composed of responsible and representative lay and allied professional workers from the community. Through the local organization, community participation can be developed and effective changes in patterns of interpersonal relations and social systems in the community can then follow in time. With this review of our experiences in community organization for mental health we believe that we can outline several guiding principles which may be tested by other groups working in different settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)