Page "Belchertown State School" Paragraph 8

Beginning in the Kennedy administration, and partly due to the civil rights movement started by African Americans, awareness of disabled people as individuals with human rights increased.

In 1966, Massachusetts passed the Mental Health and Retardation Services Act, which mandated a gradual transition from a few institutions around the state to a more community-based system of care facilities.

Coincidentally, a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war was arranging for a group of six mobility impaired, non-retarded to move into " Prospect House " in Cambridge, Mass.

These men would still commute to their highly paid day jobs at the tool and die factory abutting Fernald ; but with the alliance with the Cambridge-Somerville Assn.

for Retarded Children ( as it was the known ), efforts to socialize these men into community living were undertaken.