History Of
The Mental Health Association
of Central Oklahoma

The Mental Health Association was formed in 1952 by a group of community women who were greatly concerned about the treatment and care of patients housed in our state mental institutions.

Through the efforts of the early founders, they organized over 2,000 of their friends in a massive effort to aid the patients in the local area mental hospital, then known as Central State Hospital. They held parties, became "pen pals" and involved patients in gardening and music therapies.

Members adopted an educational mission and spoke to community groups and to high school students to encourage them to pursue degrees in the mental health field.

Mental Health Association took an early leadership role in community education on mental health issues providing Youth Symposiums and the Women's Worry Clinics for more than thirty years.

In 1979, Mental Health Association started the "REACH" support group for families of people with a mental illness. That group later became the Oklahoma Alliance for the Mentally Ill (OAMI), who today is an influential voice in the legislative process.

REACH families also pushed to start The Connection, a social club for people with mental disorders, to help ease them back into the community. Today, social clubs are operated out of each of the community mental health centers.

During the 90's, as the self-help movement grew the Association began or led people to appropriate support groups such as Elder's Family Circle , a group of people dealing with their elderly family members. Auxiliary programs such as COMPEER , a program that matches trained volunteers with person with mental illness, grew to over 115 chapters nationwide.

The Child Abuse Response Center (CARE) for sexually abused children began as a MHAOC volunteer effort to make children who had been sexually and physically abused more comfortable while awaiting their interviews with a police officer. CARE is now its own agency and provides trained forensic interviewers for the police department.

Sunbridge, a low-cost counseling program, was a started in 1991, as an extension to our Information and Referral service and continues today.

In response to the 1995 Murrah Building Bombing , our trained crisis counselors provided counseling assistance to victims and family members, resulting in a partnership with the American Red Cross of Central Oklahoma, which continued until 2004.

In 2006 the Mental Health Association in Oklahoma County changed its name to Mental Health Association of Central Oklahoma.  MHACO takes great pride in the accomplishments of those who came before us; the board and staff members who responded to the mental health issues of the day and provided leadership in the development of programs and services to address those needs