Eliot has a long and rich history of providing community-based services since the early 1960’s. Originally a child guidance institute called the Walden Clinic, Eliot was founded by Abigail Eliot, a Concord resident and well known innovator in early childhood education. In the 1970’s, with the passage of the Community Health Act and the deinstitutionalization of adults in state mental hospitals, the agency received state and federal funding for expanding its service delivery system to include community programming for adults with severe and persistent mental illness. As a result, the agency changed its name to the Eliot Community Mental Health Center and further amplified its scope of services to include residential and day treatment services for individuals with mental illness as well individuals with developmental disabilities.