Residence at the Developmental Training Center

Residence at the Developmental Training Center

Deinstitutionalization

Community Living

Indiana Institute on Disability and Community (IIDC, ISDD, DTC)

In 1973, the Developmental Training Center (DTC) on the Indiana University Bloomington campus created a deinstitutionalization project utilizing a halfway house approach. It provided residents of Muscatatuck State Hospital and Training Center experiences in the Bloomington community, experiences of life outside the institution. Participants stayed in “cottages,” one of which is depicted in this photograph. The project was directed by Mike Tracy, a faculty member in the I.U. School of Education, with funding from the Indiana Department of Mental Health

The DTC was originally known the "Mental Retardation Developmental Training Center” and opened in 1971. The DTC was built to be a residence for children and with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD), in order to “educate children with disabilities for life in a community,” and for the purpose of conducting research and training university students for professional work in the field.

Creation of the DTC was authorized and federally funded through the Mental Retardation Facilities Construction and Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963. This legislation provided federal support for research and training centers, direct service facilities for children and adults with IDD, and community mental health centers.

After they were no longer used as residences, the buildings of the DTC became office space for staff. The DTC was renamed the Institute for the Study of Developmental Disabilities, and then the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community. The photograph is believed to have been taken in the early 1970s.

Indiana Disability History Project

Center for Health Equity at the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community and Indiana Governor's Council for People with Disabilities

Copyright © 2019 The Trustees of Indiana University

image/jpeg

English

Still Image

150-si

Open to all users

Indiana, Monroe County, Bloomington

1970s