Alliance Note:On Wednesday,the Daniel’s Law Task Force continued its work towards offering recommendations to establish a statewide alternative response for mental health, substance use, and trauma related emergencies by hosting a presentation from the Gerstein Crisis Centre based out of Toronto. Representatives from the Gerstein Crisis Centre discussed their community-based mental health crisis support continuum which includes crisis intervention, wellness and recovery activities, and training and education.
The Task Force will continue to meet to evaluate best practices and create a list of recommendations for our eventual statewide system. We encourage everyone to continue to offer comments, which you can do outside of meeting by clicking here. You can also watch past meeting and get more information about the task force here.
Stay on the lookout for other ways you can support our efforts to create a statewide alternative response for health emergencies. See below for more information about Wednesday’s meeting.
Daniel’s Law Task Force hosts meeting in Albany Wednesday
By Jack Arpey | Spectrum News | May 29, 2024
The Daniel’s Law Task Force met at the state Capitol on Wednesday. The task force is examining a variety of national and international models that could help develop a crisis response system.
The public meeting follows several listening sessions that allowed the task force to gather input from around the state.
It’s named for 41-year-old Daniel Prude, who died in 2020 of asphyxiation while in Rochester Police custody during a mental health incident. It is tasked with developing recommendations to guide behavioral health crisis response and explore avenues for related diversion services.
“The end goal is for us to come up with recommendations that can be brought forward to the governor and the legislature,” New York State Office of Mental Health Commissioner Dr. Ann Sullivan said.
Sullivan told Spectrum News 1 that implementing Daniel’s Law would require looking at programs offered in communities across the state that rely primarily on mental health professionals, not police officers, to respond to calls that involve a mental health crisis.
“We do have crisis response teams in almost all of the counties,” she said.
Wednesday’s taskforce meeting, however, primarily sought input from beyond the U.S., with individuals involved in a similar program in Toronto offering guidance and answering questions.
Sullivan said she was especially impressed by the program’s ability to extend treatment beyond just the crisis that resulted in a call for help.
“You need community services that then connect all of the important crisis interventions to have a long-range outcome, and they follow people up to 90 days in the crisis system,” she said.
State Senator Samra Brouk, who sponsors the bill, said the recent bipartisan passage of Daniel’s Law in the Senate Mental Health Committee is a significant step forward in realizing the premise behind it.
“Being in a mental health crisis is not a crime, and we overcriminialize mental health and substance use crises, so we want the right people to show up to help those people who need it,” she said.
Daniel’s Law Task Force hosts meeting in Albany Wednesday (spectrumlocalnews.com)