NYAPRS Note: After months of very determined efforts, peer recovery and rights advocates have successfully convinced the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to step away from a proposal to bring an involuntary outpatient commitment program to this California county (includes Oakland). California’s version of New York’s Kendra’s Law requires each county to approve such a program.
See the photo at this posting’s end to see some of our inspiring recovery and rights focused heroes who were successful that day in ways that raised hopes for all of us nationally. I’ve also attached a letter we offered in support of their valiant effort.
Alameda County Backs Off on Laura’s Law Involuntary Mental Health Treatment Plan
By Matt O’Brien Mercury News February 26, 2014
OAKLAND — After an emotionally charged meeting that began Tuesday morning and ended after sundown, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors backed off on adopting a policy that would have forced mental health treatment on a small group of the most severely mentally ill.
Health officials had hoped to launch a one-year pilot program to provide intensive, court-ordered treatment for no more than five people who refused psychiatric care despite their deteriorating mental health. The plan grew out of dismay that the county has California’s highest rate of psychiatric detention, in which police officers and clinicians commit the mentally ill to emergency jail and hospital stays.
Billed as a more compassionate alternative to emergency detention and backed by families struggling to find help for their loved ones, the test plan was opposed by other mental health advocates who argued it was just another form of involuntary treatment that violates dignity and will harm more than it helps.
Both sides packed the board chamber in Oakland and spoke for hours Tuesday. The five county supervisors were uncharacteristically divided, and some sparred with one another as they recounted their own family members’ challenges with mental illness.
Supervisors Scott Haggerty, Keith Carson and Richard Valle voted to delay the proposal for 90 days and asked behavioral health officials to bring back a better set of recommendations. Supervisor Nate Miley abstained after voicing support for the original plan. Supervisor Wilma Chan, the proposal’s biggest champion on the board, voted against the delay after imploring her colleagues to move forward after nearly a year of deliberation.
“People have been heard, and we know what the opinions are,” Chan said earlier in the day. “Sometimes the board is going to have to make tough policy choices.”
The plan was crafted following the recommendations of state Assembly Bill 1421, known as Laura’s Law, which was signed in 2002 by then-Gov. Gray Davis but only takes effect in counties that opt in. San Diego and San Francisco counties are among those that have launched Laura’s Law-inspired programs, but only Nevada County has fully implemented the law.
The rural Gold Rush county in the Sierra Nevada was the site of a 2001 shooting rampage by a man whose mental illness had gone untreated. The law was named after Laura Wilcox, one of the victims.
Nevada County’s director of behavioral health spoke at the meeting Tuesday, extolling the benefits of the court-ordered program there, but East Bay critics said the county of fewer than 100,000 people had little in common with Alameda County’s diverse population of more than 1.5 million.
Proponents, however, said something needed to be done about Alameda County’s troubling number of emergency psychiatric detentions.
More than 1,970 times last year, police officers and clinicians across Alameda County committed people to jails or hospitals on 72-hour psychiatric holds through California’s Section 5150, which allows such detentions for people deemed a danger to themselves or others.
The county “coercively treats more residents per capita than any other” and it is “unethical and immoral” to continue that trend, said Alex Briscoe, director of the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency.
Briscoe advocated for adopting 10 recommendations inspired by Laura’s Law, of which the one-year involuntary treatment pilot was the 10th and most contentious. He argued that all the proposed treatment methods — including a street youth outreach team — were targeting just 100 or so people who are placed on Section 5150 holds four or more times each year, cycling in and out of county jails and the John George Psychiatric Hospital in San Leandro.
“That’s the population we’re narrowly focusing on,” Briscoe said.
Among a number of parents speaking Tuesday in favor of adopting Laura’s Law was Candy DeWitt, the mother of a man charged with bludgeoning to death Peter Cukor in the Berkeley hills two years ago. Her son, Daniel DeWitt, was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial because of a history of illness. Family members believe involuntary outpatient treatment might have averted the tragedy.
Briscoe emphasized that under the proposal, a mental health judge could not force anyone to take psychiatric medicine, only order that they undergo professional care.
But opponents argued that another form of forced treatment was not a sensible solution.
“For me, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that more court-ordered treatment” would reduce the high rate of psychiatric holds, said Lisa Smusz, director of Peers Envisioning and Engaging in Recovery Services, or PEERS.
The Oakland group mobilized dozens of yellow-shirted members to speak out against the proposal Tuesday. Smusz said after the meeting that she hopes the 90-day breather gives both factions time to find common ground.
“It’s my hope that we can do something collaboratively, both sides,” she said. “Being divided on this issue I think has done a disservice to what we all care about.”
Alameda County Puts Controversial Laura’s Law Pilot Program on Hold
By Steven Tavares East Bay Citizen February 27, 2014
During one of the most heartbreaking, riveting and longest Alameda County Board of Supervisors meetings in recent memory, a long-discussed proposal to approve the early stages of a court-ordered treatment program for the mentally ill, was put on hold Tuesday after over five hours of testimony and clear signs of division among the normally staid board.
Numerous speakers passionately urged for and against the controversial program some deride as a violation of civil rights and others view as a last resort for loved ones who repeatedly neglect treatment for their mental illness. A state law dubbed Laura’s Law (also referred to as AB 1421 by county officials) gives counties the authority to create a program that uses the courts to force chronically non-compliant patients into outpatient care.
The proposal sought to create a one-year pilot program comprised of up to five patients and estimated to cost around $225,000 for treatment and legal fees. “It is not a panacea,” said Alameda County Healthcare Services Director Alex Briscoe. “It is for a small number of patients who are deteriorating currently and who we believe cannot maintain safety right now.”
The impetus for the county’s push for opting-in to Laura’s Law started over two years ago with the murder of Berkeley resident Peter Cukor by Daniel DeWitt, a mentally ill young man who routinely resisted help for his condition. His parents, Al and Candy DeWitt, say Laura’s Law would have saved both their son and Cukor. The couple have since become one of the leading advocates for Laura’s Law.
They argue the program is a kinder tool for mental health experts to administer care, rather than the sometime combative scenarios when a person is deemed a danger themselves and must be restrained and incarcerated. “I once witnessed my son being forcefully held against his will,” said Al DeWitt. “It was horrible and painful to watch.” His wife urged opponents of Laura’s Law not to look at them as adversaries. “Nobody is more on your side than us,” said Candy DeWitt as she turned to the audience.
Alameda County Healthcare Services has been honing the county’s iteration of Laura’s Law for much of the past year. Many well-attended public meeting have occurred since. Over the span of the discussion, the plan’s likelihood of being approved by the Board of Supervisors has gone from unlikely to likely and back. At Tuesday’s meeting, Supervisors Scott Haggerty, Richard Valle and Keith Carson voiced skepticism whether the county’s proposal, as it stands, is well-conceived. (Carson, Haggerty, Valle voted to continue the discussion; Chan voted no; Miley abstained.)
Haggerty said he was torn between both sides of the argument. “What if we get it wrong, I keep thinking that. What happens?” he said. “Laura’s law might get you there. But I keep thinking, ‘Can we be more passionate in Alameda County?’” Haggerty later told Briscoe, “We can do better, Alex.”
Tuesday’s agenda item simply asked the Board of Supervisors for the go-ahead to begin fleshing out a specific proposal based on Laura’s Law. Valle, however, worried the issue had created divisions among the board and the community. “There’s nothing for me to vote on that says this model works,” said Valle, who urged for a public meeting in his south county district. The proposal also failed to take into account the county’s unique gender, age and cultural differences, he said. “It has to be different because this is Alameda County.”
Carson, too, voiced support for furthering the discussion in hopes of creating, what he called, an “Alameda County model” that may perform a similar functions to Laura’s Law. Supervisor Wilma Chan, one of the main backers of Laura Law’s in the county, however, urged for a vote Tuesday, but was also amendable to additional dialogue on the subject, she said. Supervisor Nate Miley, another proponent, sensed the board was divided and huffily proposed using his own Oakland-centric district for the pilot, while contended his colleagues were “afraid” to make a decision on Laura’s Law.
“Implement it in my district. Let me be the guinea pig for the five,” he declared after noting having no personal experience with the mentally ill. The comments set off Carson, who described his own history with a mentally ill family member and peppered his remarks with language rarely heard in the supervisor’s chambers.
“I have personally seen that person restrained. I have personally seen that person force-fed medication. I personally continue to live with that person’s disability and so this is not something I have read about,” said Carson. He later sniped at Chan. Studying the issue for another three months might allow for an even better program for all sides of the mental health question, he urged. “That’s for all the other people who don’t have the advocacy. They don’t have the people that can help them.”
http://www.publicceo.com/2014/02/alameda-county-puts-controversial-lauras-law-pilot-program-on-hold/
