(Sept. 2, 2014) Assisted outpatient treatment in New Jersey is showing significant success, according to an early analysis of what New Jersey calls “Involuntary Outpatient Commitment.”
New Jersey's involuntary outpatient commitment (IOC) law passed in 2009 gives judges the authority to order severely mentally ill people into outpatient treatment under some circumstances.
“The success we have seen is beyond our wildest dreams,” said Kim Veith, director of clinical services at Ocean Mental Health Services in the Garden State ("NJ Officials: Involuntary commitment program works," NJTV News).
The achievements for clients with severe mental illness participating in IOC include reduced hospitalization and emergency room visits, shorter inpatient stays, reduced crime and incarceration and reduced homelessness.
Of clients who were homeless prior to participating in the AOT program run by the Mental Health Association of Essex County (MHAEC):
- 20 percent are now in supportive housing;
- 40 percent are in boarding homes;
- 20 percent are living successfully with family members.
The same program has also reduced arrests among clients. Of crimes that were committed while on IOC all were misdemeanors compared to the clients’ histories “of more numerous and more serious crimes” prior to participating in the program.
Results also show that fewer than half of the clients were re-hospitalized one time and only one client was re-hospitalized twice.
Ultimately, “IOC gives us a way to watch people who tend to be dangerous and give them the support they need,” said Veith.
Programs in other counties also show significant achievements. A woman with paranoid schizophrenia and a history of noncompliance is now taking injectable medication, is stabilized and enrolled in college, said Elizabeth Cruickshank, a clinician at the Family Guidance Center of Warren County of one of her patients.
Clients have good things to say, too.
“I learned that I’m smart, that I have a good personality and that I need my medication or I go off the wall,” said an IOC client at the Jersey City Medical Center of his experience with mandatory outpatient commitment.
The Christie administration dedicated an additional $4.5 million to fund IOC in all 21 New Jersey counties last March, so we expect even more positive results ahead.
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