History

This timeline about the roots of the Peer Support movement recounts a range of important initiatives, laws, organizations and people. It is drawn from conversations and documents about mental health, substance use, self-help support groups, legislation and more. While it is not comprehensive, it touches on major themes that have shaped our social services systems.

 

1800s

Themes: Large public psychiatric hospitals are overcrowded and little more than warehouses for those locked up, many of whom are committed for indefinite periods. Many people died there and are buried in graves marked only by numbers. There was little treatment for alcoholism or opiate addiction, which were seen as a weakness or moral failing; there were few resources for disabled children.

 

1853—California opened the first Insane Asylum of California in Stockton (Later renamed the Stockton Developmental Center, it is now part of CSU Stanislaus). Hospital practices included iron chains and shackles. Children were placed in hospital wards with adults as there was nowhere else to place them. 

 

1885—The California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble-Minded Children opened in Santa Clara County to serve developmentally disabled children. (It later became the Sonoma Developmental Center which closed in 2018.)