About Mental Health Virginia

“Wild Propaganda Schemes for Sterilization Deplored”

This Richmond Times Dispatch headline of February 20, 1937 described the address of Dr. Beverley R. Tucker to the organizational meeting of the Mental Hygiene Society of Virginia, known today as Mental Health Virginia (MHV). Dr. Tucker was a professor of neuropsychiatry at the Medical College of Virginia and founder of what is now Tucker Pavilion at Chippenham Hospital in Richmond. He was elected that night as the first president of the Society.

Although specific issues and services have changed with the times, the agency’s core mission remains essentially the same: To educate, empower, and advocate to improve the mental health of all Virginians.

In 1925 Virginia had passed the Eugenical Sterilization Act, a codification of the eugenics movement in the Commonwealth until its abolition in the 1970s. The practice in Virginia’s mental hospitals was wholesale sterilization of those “afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity that are recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy.”

Dr. Tucker spoke against “archaic sterilization laws” and of the need for individualized approaches, with trained doctors determining the provision of care. He was joined on the society’s first board of directors by many prominent physicians and other leaders of the state’s health care, social welfare, education and faith communities.

The Mental Hygiene Society of Virginia led this state’s mental health reform and public awareness efforts through statewide meetings, presentations and the formation of local affiliates. An early example, from the October 13, 1940 Times-Dispatch, is a notice that the theme of the society’s annual meeting would be: “How the nation may keep its mental balance in the present national emergency, and how it may safely guide youth through the shellshocked era of the second World War.”

A 1942 Times Dispatch editorial praised the Society and Dr. R. Finley Gayle, Jr., “a prime mover” of the group and a leader of the State Hospital Board. It added: “Several strikingly able young psychiatrists have in recent years been attracted to the State hospital system, because of the opportunity it now affords to do work that will count. All of them are taking a part in the work of the Virginia Mental Hygiene Society, which deserves a major share of credit for what Virginia is doing in mental medicine.”

In the 1950s the Virginia organization affiliated with the national Mental Health Association, which adopted as its symbol the Mental Health Bell in 1953. The bell was formed by collecting chains and shackles from mental asylums around the country (including Virginia’s Eastern State Hospital), melting them down at the McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore, and casting the 300 pound Bell of Hope. The bell’s inscription reads: “Cast from shackles…, this bell shall ring out hope …and victory over mental illness.”

In the 1950s and 1960s local MHA affiliate volunteers throughout Virginia provided free mental health clinics, and the state association organized annual research and training conferences. MHV’s advocacy in the 1960s helped produce Virginia’s community mental health system, the Community Services Boards that are the front line public mental health safety net for adults and children.

In recent decades MHV became a leader in the peer support movement, forming partnerships with the state to develop training curriculum and empowerment tools for adults in recovery. Of particular note was the Consumer Empowerment and Leadership Training, a 4-day retreat style training to prepare consumers (peers) for leadership roles on Community Services Boards, workgroups and commissions.

During the COVID 19 pandemic, the state asked MHV to develop and manage a free crisis support phone service for mental health related calls. The line served over 5,000 people with valuable support and local resource information.

Today, Mental Health Virginia provides recovery support for adults to prevent a mental health crisis, public awareness to break stigma, and advocacy for access to a continuum of mental health services statewide.

MHV’s recovery services include Virginia’s free, confidential peer-run Warm Line for non-judgmental listening and mental health support, serving 5,000 adults a year who call or text any day of the week from anywhere in the state. Our Certified Peer Recovery Specialists (PRS) present free recovery education webinars and in-person trainings. Our PRS also support adult probationers with mental illness by providing recovery and wellness planning, and help staff the Alive RVA addiction recovery support warm line.

MHV also provides training and a professional network for Peer Recovery Specialists. PRS are a relatively new addition to the behavioral health workforce, using the lived experience of illness and recovery combined with certification training and supervision to support others on their own journey to a healthy life.

Our outreach includes providing mental health information at annual conferences of mental health and crime victim service providers, health fairs and community festivals. We provide helpful mental health information to nearly 8,000 people/year through our social media platforms, and advocate with policy makers and legislators for a better, more accessible mental health service system.