1966 and 1967

On site with the role models

Häfner travelled to the USA, Canada and the UK with the Lord Mayor of Mannheim, Dr Hans Reschke, the Mayor of Mannheim for Social and Health Care, Dr Hans Martini, and a team of architects from the Mannheim Building Department to obtain ideas for the planning of the CIMH at psychiatric facilities. The new Community Mental Health Centres in the USA were of particular interest. With a network of community facilities - including outpatient clinics, workshops and homes - the aim was to enable patients who had previously been hospitalised on a long-term basis to leave the hospital again. The newly established Yale Connecticut Mental Health Centre in New Haven impressed with its combination of university-based research and social psychiatric care. It also provided the insight that the model institute had to be located in the centre of the city. The Department of Psychiatry at Yale Medical School and its director, Prof Fritz Redlich, subsequently took over the sponsorship of the Mannheim Model Institute.