Approximately 110 private and non-profit community-based agencies are contracted by OMH/MR to provide emergency, short-term inpatient, outpatient, support, consultation, rehabilitation and educational programs and services. OMH/MR assists the mentally disabled and their families in locating and receiving these community-based services.

The Office of Mental Health and Mental Retardation is also responsible for funding a range of services for individuals with mental retardation including vocational employment support, early intervention programs, family support, community living arrangements, and case management services. OMH/MR provides case management for over 6,000 individuals living at home and works together with families, service providers and interested citizens for programs that help to change public attitudes and assist community living.

The Office of Mental Health and Mental Retardation submits an annual plan that includes an inventory of existing services and a projection of needed additional ones.

OMH/MR has worked hard to create a system of community based services for the growing number of individuals who have moved out from the hospital system, including the over 500 former residents of the Pennhurst State School and Hospital that was closed in 1985 as the result of a class-action lawsuit. OMH/MR's mission promotes the opportunity for those people with mental retardation who wish to leave large institutions to a return to everyday life in their communities

OMH/MR operates the Mental Health Emergency Delegate Line and the Suicide and Crisis Intervention Service. Both telephone hot-lines operate 24 hours a day, seven days of the week including holidays. The Mental Emergency Line delegates provide information and referrals to assist professionals and the public to access mental health services. They are also authorized to dispatch the John F. Kennedy Mobile Emergency Team to clients and families in mental distress anywhere in the city. The Suicide and Crisis Intervention Service staff is professionally trained to counsel those with emergency emotional problems. They help callers sort though their problems, evaluate the caller's condition and provide information and referral assistance as well as arranging emergency intervention if necessary.

NOTE: The Office of Mental Health and Mental Retardation is now a part of the newly formed independent Department of Behavioral Health