The Finan Center—Mental Retardation Unit,
which opened October 23, 1978, was established
to serve the residential needs of retarded adults in
AUegany and Garrett counties in accordance with
Article 59A, sec. 19, of the Annotated Code of
Maryland. The Mental Retardation Unit at the
Thomas B. Finan Center, a multipurpose health
facility, provides occupational, physical, speech,
and hearing therapies, social services, and medical
supervision to its clients.

The major goal of the Unit is to habilitate
clients to the point where they may be returned
to various community settings of a less restric-
tive nature. The service capability is for fifty
clients.

GREAT OAKS CENTER
Clifford P. Lockyer, Director

12001 Cherry Hill Road
Silver Spring 20904 Telephone: 595-5000

Great Oaks Center was established by Chapter
556, Acts of 1967, as the Metropolitan Washing-
ton Retardation Center. It adopted its present
name in 1971. Great Oaks Center opened in the
fall of 1970 to serve mentally retarded persons
from Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince
George's, and St. Mary's counties. Great Oaks
was the first regional center to be initiated by the
Mental Retardation Administration.

The first phase of construction provided care
and training for 300 mentally retarded residents
and a thirty-bed infirmary. The second phase of
construction was completed in September 1974,
providing living and programming space for an
additional 270 residents (Code 1957, Art. 59, sec.
19).

A full range of comprehensive and diversified
services and programs are provided by the Cen-
ter to all retarded individuals, including respite
care, for the counties served. Services and
programs in the areas of education, training,
and habilitation are programmed in both the
Center and in the community for the facility's
retarded residents.

A day care program integrates into the
programs and services offered by Great Oaks
mentally retarded persons from the five counties.
A Continuum of Services Team serves several
outreach functions in the community such as
training parents in their homes to deal with the
special problems of their children so that

institutionalization may be averted, working with
teachers in local schools to aid them with the ed-
ucation and training needs of their mentally re-
tarded students, assisting county health
departments and community agencies in the de-
velopment of resources for the mentally retarded,
and follow-up with discharged residents to main-
tain them in the community.

HIGHLAND HEALTH FACILITY
Hazel Smith, Director

5200 Eastern Avenue
Baltimore 21224 Telephone: 276-7000

A Mental Retardation Unit and a Psychiatric
Screening and Evaluation unit at Baltimore City
Hospital's "D" Building were created by stat-
ute, admitting their first patients in November
1972.

The services provided by the Mental Retarda-
tion Unit are designed to provide intensive ha-
bilitation for physically handicapped mentally
retarded persons between three and sixteen
years of age. The major emphasis is on mobili-
zation training for both nonambulatory and par-
tially ambulatory retarded individuals. The
Highland Facility is budgeted for ninety-nine
mentally retarded residents and forty-seven psy-
chiatric residents.

A special education program was established in
October 1975, which focuses on the special
problems and needs of mentally retarded
residents of the Highland Health Facility.

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND
MENTAL HYGIENE BOARDS AND
COMMISSIONS

Ethel Stem, Coordinator of Boards and
Commissions

201 W, Preston Street
Baltimore 21201 Telephone: 383-2709

Boards and commissions assure quality health
care by administering licensure and certification
programs for the health professions and carry out
regulatory and inspection activities as prescribed
by law. The activities of the boards and commis-
sions are supported by General Fund
appropriations, with revenue derived from exami-
nation fees, and other fees returned to the State's
General Fund.