Somerville Mental Health Association was founded in 1964 by a group of parents, school administrators, and State Department of Mental Health managers in response to federal legislation that funded community mental health centers around the country. It was set up as part of a decentralized behavioral health system for Somerville and Cambridge that included a set of other private, non-profit agencies founded at the same time in Cambridge to address needs for housing, for substance abuse treatment, and for acute psychiatric treatment. As a result, our agency has always operated as part of a system of closely collaborating service agencies. It also has had the distinction of being the only agency in the original network that was founded to focus its services on Somerville.
Our primary mission is to meet the behavioral health needs of people who live or work in Somerville, giving priority to those with low incomes and other under-served, socially-marginalized people. To address these needs we provide both preventive and clinical services designed to enable individuals to experience greater competence and social support in the least restrictive environments, and to promote respectful and supportive qualities in community life that can nourish such healthy changes.
