Establishing community services for the mentally ill: a summary of lessons learned.

In summary, the development of programs in the community serving the severely and chronically mentally ill is a political-sociological activity requiring a detailed working knowledge of the community to be involved, a clear understanding of objectives and specific agreements related to the program to be developed, adequate and stable funding, appropriate supportive and ancillary resources, significant bureaucratic skill and flexibility, adequate time for appropriate community education and feedback from key community leaders, a certain amount of clairvoyance in anticipating difficulties and unexpected problems, an immense amount of perseverance and, finally--and probably as important as any other single element--timing and luck.