If you have not yet had a chance to read the following book, I recommend picking it up: Acts of Conscience: World War II, Mental Institutions, and Religious Objectors written by Steven Taylor, Director of the Center on Human Policy and Coordinator of Disability Studies, School of Education, at Syracuse University.
From book description: “In the mid- to late 1940s, a group of young men rattled the psychiatric establishment by beaming a public spotlight on the squalid conditions and brutality in our nation’s mental hospitals and training schools for people with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities.” An important and inspiring vision and ongoing challenge for service workers and concerned citizens today.
Read a review by David Race in the June 2010 issue of The SRV Journal.