 On October 31, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Community Mental Health Act of 1963, which sparked a major transformation of the public mental health system by shifting resources away from large institutions towards community-based mental health treatment programs.Soon after the passage of this law, the Department created the Central Oklahoma Community Mental Health Center (COCMHC), which was the first facility of its kind in the United States

The Department provides services through a statewide network of programs.The core of the system is a network of 14 community mental health centers, ten nonprofit agencies with which the ODMHSAS contracts, and four state-operated centers.