Southside Virginia Training Center

Southside Virginia Training Center. Petersburg, Virginia. , In 1938 the Virginia General assembly chartered a residential care facility of African American males aged 8-21, with mental disabilities. The Petersburg State Colony for the Negro Insane, as it was named was located on the present site of Richard Bland College, about seven miles southwest of here. A female unit, housing 70 women, was added in 1941., At the beginning of the 20th century, the terms "idiot," "imbecile," and "moron" were commonly used legal definitions for those with mental disabilities. Care for these individuals at the time was not directed at education, but at basic survival. There were no admission criteria, and young people and hardened criminals were placed together., From 1943 to 1952, as attitudes changed and the idea of occupational education began to take hold, the Colony became a training school, similar to a boarding school. Criminals were discharged, the atmosphere changed, and the facility was renamed Evergreen because of its beautiful green setting., In 1960, the institution moved to its current 66-acre site across from Central State Hospital, and its name was changed to the Petersburg Training School. In 1967 the facility was integrated, and in 1971 the facility received an influx of clients with mental disabilities from the nearby hospital. This was the result of a legislative decision to separate persons with mental disabilities from the mentally ill. At this time the name was changed again to the Petersburg Training School and Hospital., When the services and facilities were expanded in 1975, the facility was renamed the Southside Virginia Training Center for the Mentally Retarded. The training center is one of the fie regional centers in the state to provide health, habitation, and educational services for those eligible and stands as an example of the change in policy and attitude toward the education of persons with mental disabilities throughout the years., [Captions:] , Built in 1904, the Female Psychopathic Building was occupied on all floors for dormitory purposes for female psychopathic patients. Clients with mental disabilities were kept at Central State Hospital along with the mentally ill before the 1971 legislative change to separate them., This one-story Quonset building, with a cinder-block foundation, was used as a barber shop and beauty shop for patients., The center's milk barn was a two-story frame building with an ordinary wood joist roof. The first floor contained 44 metal cattle stanchions. The second floor was used to store feed. The building had no means of artificial heat but did have electricity for lighting., The training shop and implement storage building was a two-story frame building with an ordinary wood joist roof covered with metal. The first floor, which was entirely open, had an earth floor and was used for the storage of farm implements. In the center of the building was a small enclosure containing a pipeless furnace, which heated the training shop on the second floor.