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Dear Legislator:
Many of our members passionately support Kendra’s
Law. They understand what it means to desperately seek
help for loved ones who do not understand they are ill
and therefore refuse treatment. While not perfect, Kendra’s
Law has saved lives and has given many a new start in
life. It is a last resort option that works, and can work
well when properly implemented.
What is Assisted Outpatient Treatment, the treatment provided
for by Kendra’s Law, a last resort to? Re-hospitalization,
incarceration and homelessness. According to the OMH Final
Report on Kendra’s Law, psychiatric hospitalization
was reduced 77%, homelessness was reduced 74%, arrests
were reduced 83% and incarcerations were reduced 87% for
the total population in AOT.
Kendra’s Law is for those few who need it. During
the past five years, courts have ordered treatment plans
for only 3,776 individuals, a yearly average of 747. This
represents less than two tenths of one percent (0.2%)
of the 600,000 plus New Yorkers receiving mental health
services statewide. To make sure that Assisted Outpatient
Treatment is given only to those who need it, the law
applies strict criteria and due process that includes
a case-by-case review by a civil court. The law has been
found constitutional twice by a unanimous decision of
the state’s highest court.
NAMI-NYS has issued a white paper on Kendra’s Law
based on interviews with 20 families whose loved ones
have been or are being served through AOT. (We have since
talked with many more.) These families overwhelmingly
support the law. Many are worried what will happen to
their loved ones if the law is allowed to expire next
June. (The white paper is on our website, www.naminys.org.)
What has happened since we issued the white paper? Opponents
of the law have launched an effort to distract any substantive
dialogue about improving it with recycled, disproven arguments
against the very existence of the Assisted Outpatient
Treatment level of care. According to the opponents, every
court order under Kendra’s Law must be viewed as
a failure of the mental health system. We view multiple
hospitalizations, imprisonment, homelessness and death
as system failures, not the level of care that now has
significant track record of reducing such failures, which
is Assisted Outpatient Treatment.
We ask you to vote for a new Kendra’s Law before
the current one expires on June 30th.
We ask you to make the new law permanent, in order to
have a “floor” for further improvement –
to settle the question of whether the law should exist
at all in order to get on with a more substantive debate,
not only on improving the delivery of Assisted Outpatient
Services, but outpatient services in general.
We also ask that the new law be more accessible to those
who need AOT and that it demand more accountability from
those who provide AOT.
For more information, please contact us at (518) 462-2000.
Sincerely,
Ione Christian
President
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