Film opens with gauzy images of a man being viciously beaten on a sidewalk. The assailant, a teen, is shown in a judge's chambers, defiant. His mother hangs her head. A local reporter in the room expresses his support of the teen's sentence. Immediately afterward, a group of women discuss the crime, the teen, and whether anything could have been done to intervene well before such violence took place. With that starting point, the community coalesces around the need to survey mental health needs and provide a continuum of care. Health providers and ordinary concerned citizens cooperate to identify gaps and to establish a health center to treat mental illness and emotional disorders. Shows examples of the kind of preventive services a mental health center might provide. Several state agencies provided support to make the film, including those from New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
Learn more about this film and search its transcript at NLM Digital Collections: http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101773836
Learn more about the National Library of Medicine's historical audiovisuals program at: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/collections/films