Adult Outpatient Treatment Pilot Program Launched Yesterday
Press release from Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services:
An Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) pilot program for people experiencing mental health crises [launched yesterday], thanks to a partnership with the Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) Behavioral Health Branch and nonprofit Environmental Alternatives (EA).
EA is a community-based organization that contracts with counties across Northern California to provide an array of services including mental health and foster care.
AOT is a program for individuals diagnosed with serious and persistent mental illness, like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, who are in crisis or recovering from a crisis caused by mental illness and for whom voluntary services are not working.
DHHS Behavioral Health Deputy Branch Director Jack Breazeal said individuals might be referred to AOT after multiple visits to Sempervirens psychiatric hospital and/or jail in conjunction with unsuccessful engagement by the individual in traditional outpatient services.
When an individual is referred to the AOT program, EA will conduct outreach to engage the individual, and the referred individual will be offered services and supports to help stabilize their mental health and address ongoing treatment barriers.
Individuals can be referred to the AOT program by a qualified mental health professional, law enforcement, qualified community partners and adults living with the referred individual. The AOT program is designed to help support and stabilize individuals diagnosed with a serious mental illness through a program that is less restrictive than inpatient hospitalizations and conservatorship to prevent the need for higher levels of care.
As the program kicks off, Breazeal said staff hope to have 10 people in the program at any given time with the goal of helping approximately 30 people in the first year. “Ultimately it is up to Behavioral Health staff who will be referred to EA for services, and we will reserve our limited slots for those who have repeated episodes of inpatient hospitalization and/or incarceration and have struggled to engage effectively in outpatient services.”
The program is the result of a California state law known as Laura’s Law which allows for court-ordered assisted outpatient treatment. Individuals who refuse to participate in the AOT program on their own may be directed by the courts to participate in the program. While there are no legal ramifications to an individual refusing to participate, involving the courts and a judge often makes it more likely for individuals to comply with treatment recommendations.
“We look forward to this program and our increased ability to help individuals in our community who we recognize are in need of services but can be reluctant to seek them,” Breazeal said. “In collaboration with the courts we are hopeful that this program will allow for a greater opportunity and access to assist individuals get the treatment they need.”
Local implementation of the program will be evaluated after the first year. Click here to learn more about the Assisted Outpatient Treatment program.
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This (AOT) Program sounds like a winner…
It’s not.
There wasn’t any outpatient options for mental health care through the DHHS before this? I guess that explains a lot
Great , more people given legal speed. So people take meth , fry brain , labeled mentally ill. Now they need more drugs to help fried brain. Crack me up, you fry that melon on meth, its done. You can’t cope with the price of fuel, we’ll prescribe you a drug. Now we wonder why mass shootings are a problem.
Yes, a lot of people are in denial about their mental health issues…
🤔🧐”…in denial…”, you say???
It appears that you are correct, this time, complete with indisputable proof…
“…about their…”, pretty much sums it up…
A perfect illustration.
All in just one concise sentence, too.👍
Eloquent!
This sounds like something that should have existed long ago. But two caveats: first trust that the County is capable of doing anything right, including contracting with anyone because such things are routinely done here informally without much examination or responsibility, is hard to come by. And then, the cute little phrase “While there are no legal ramifications to an individual refusing to participate” likely means there is zero reason that the people who most need the help will comply even if they agree to it in order to avoid jail.
Back when “Laura’s Law”, was being considered for adoption by Humboldt County, our Supervisor deemed it wise…
It was estimated, by someone in the know, (I forget who it was), that the adoption of Laura’s Law would help, exactly, only one person, statistically, or literally… Again, I can’t recall which… Or if that was yearly…
But, our Supervisor deemed it wise, and it was accepted in Humboldt, and implemented.
There is a high likelihood for abuse in it’s implementation.
If it just backfires on just one individual per year, because their family abused the law, then it is a complete wash.
If more than one individual per year, is unjustifiably subjected to it per year, then it has done more harm than good, at considerable cost.
A dangerous game.
Anything can be abused by determinedly, persistent and dishonest people. But Laura’s law has safe guards built in like it can only apply if a person has had psychiatric hospitalization in two of the last three years. Not something easy to fake. It is applied by a court and has appeal rights.
Doing nothing to enforce treatment in people incapable of even understanding they have a mental illness but who are a danger to themselves and others can also be abuse. In fact that sort of abuse is fairly common now. Where a mentally ill person is literally abused or becomes a weapon to be used by the unscrupulous because no one has the power to stop it.
So no, it is not “a wash” if one person is “unjustifiable subjected to it” if the alternative is to have no way to treat many thousands more incapable of taking care of themselves. Like everything else, it is a matter of dealing with the imperfections in everything and not simply surrendering because it is not perfect all the time.
Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental IllnessKen Burns Presents — A film by Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren EwersThe issues surrounding mental illness are extraordinarily complex. The risk factors are daunting, the economics bewildering, and the politics contentious. But the most important step—and often the most difficult one—is to start talking about it. Hiding in Plain Sight will bring that conversation into homes, schools, the workplace, and community organizations across the country.
The two-part, four-hour film follows the journeys of more than 20 young Americans from all over the country and all walks of life, who have struggled with thoughts and feelings that have troubled—and, at times—overwhelmed them. They share what they have learned about themselves, their families, and the world in which they live. Through first-person accounts, the film presents an unstinting look at both the seemingly insurmountable obstacles faced by those who live with mental disorders and the hope that many have found after that storm. In the process, they will directly confront the issues of stigma, discrimination, awareness, and silence, and, in doing so, support the ongoing shift in the public perception of mental illness today.
Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness
The Storm Episode 1 | 1h 56m
https://www.pbs.org/video/hiding-plain-sight-youth-mental-illness-101/
Resilience Episode 2 | 1h 52m 1s
https://www.pbs.org/video/hiding-plain-sight-youth-mental-illness-102/
Both have pre views
If it harms as many as it helps, its definitely a wash.
If it gives the unscrupulous, another opportunity to use a tool improperly, in order to exert inappropriate power and control over a family member, it will definitely have the potential to do more harm than good, for such an individual.
Many people abuse the system, for power and control over other people.
It’s not always justified, and it is in no way uncommon.
If you think that the few should be sacrificed, for the good of the many, I believe you are treading the wrong path.
The appropriate path to take would be to identify the causes of the vast majority of mental illness, and try and mitigate that at it’s source, say, locking up drug dealers.
Methamphetamine must be at about the top of the root causes of mental illnesses.
To overlook and ignore that is to render any other treatment for mental illness, simply an exercise in futility.
So many of the ones that point the finger at mental illness, are in denial about their own mental illness.
That results in the wrong people getting forced treatment, way too often.
Let me put it this way, you’d have to be crazy, to work at Sempervirons…
To blame mental illness on drugs is simplistic. More likely people with existing mental health issues use drugs to self-medicate.
Mental illness causes..
Brain Damage
Trauma
Infection
Malnutrition
Fetal Damage
Genetics
Substance abuse
childhood abuse, trauma, or neglect.
social isolation or loneliness
social disadvantage, poverty
When it comes to what exactly causes mental illness, there isn’t just one thing, but a variety of factors. The brain is a very complex part of our body, and just the slightest imperfection can result in a variety of mental issues.
It was an example, clearly.
But what you are saying, is all true.
It’s multi generational, and as you have noted, the causes are myriad.
But the causes, are what needs to be focused on, and remedied, if possible, or nothing will change, and the mentally ill, if simply funded, will just continue to become another inappropriate renewable resource , for others to profit off of.
Can treatment be provided on an ongoing basis for the members of the BOS? They are the people most in need of mental healthcare.
I am all for the AOT program. I really hope it works out and will be available to all those in need. We can’t keep sweeping these people under the carpet and pretend that there is nothing wrong. It does not matter what your reason is for help, drugs, abuse, etc. Mental illness comes in all sizes and shapes, and does not care if you are homeless, a doctor, lawyer, young, old, etc.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 👍
And most therapists don’t know how, or don’t have the skills to treat it.
They need updated training.
A diagnosis in 10 minutes and a handful of pills isn’t going to do the job. This illness requires time, energy, understanding of what the patient is feeling, seeing, hearing, and a full time friend that cares enough to put up with it, and work though it with compassion and comprehension.
How many therapists are up for that kind of commitment?
Unfortunately, you are correct about most therapists in this area needing training. To come to the correct diagnosis when working with one individual you have to know and understand what the person is dealing with in the first place. I am just praying that the pilot program will get the ball rolling.
If you have qualified through most of the available programs in the state, you are capable of diagnosing and treating the mentally ill. In order to work as a therapist, you must have training and be state-certified. If not, you can legally call yourself only a counselor. Most therapists have their own consultants, people with more training than them, psychiatrists, for example, to help them. Very few, if any, work in a vacuum.
I have found that if you pay them well-enough, skilled therapists will do their job.
I don’t see how this will work unless there are “legal ramifications to an individual refusing to participate”. Shouldn’t recalcitrant patients be placed under conservatorship to keep them out of the revolving door of Sempervirens and jail?
Conservatorship usually means someone has to be paid to take oversee their care. It is not inexpensive and it does not necessarily involve therapists.