Primary Prevention - Whose Responsibility?

Picture a slum area where children suffer from malnutrition, where families struggle to survive with inadequate income, where the infant mortality rate is double the national average, and where delinquency, alcoholism, drug addiction, and prostitution abound. Can a mental health facility serving this area operate with traditional priorities and clinical services? Does not its responsibility go beyond treating the mentally ill who come or are brought to it? What are its legitimate concerns for five-, six-, and seven-year-old children who are rapidly falling behind in school and seem destined to be the next generation’s school dropouts, delinquents, drug addicts, and mentally ill?