(Feb. 13, 2013) Among the three mental health policy reforms the Treatment Advocacy Center proposed to the president’s task force on gun violence in January was seeding a national demonstration project to foster wider use of assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) for qualifying individuals with severe mental illness.
“Mental health courts proliferated after the demonstration project funded by the federal government in 2000,” said Doris A. Fuller, executive director. “As a result of that project, these courts have become a widely used vehicle for getting people with severe mental illness into treatment after they commit a crime.
“An AOT demonstration project has the potential to introduce courts and communities to the use of court-ordered outpatient treatment so that people could get into treatment before they commit crimes or suffer other consequences of not receiving timely and effective treatment.”
Forty-five states have laws authorizing the use of AOT, but it is comprehensively implemented statewide only in New York. The proposed demonstration project would provide grants to promote wider use of AOT by seeding up to 100 AOT programs nationwide.
The Department of Justice has deemed AOT to be an effective, evidence-based program that reduces the risks of hospitalization, arrest, incarceration, crime, victimization and violence. Independent study also has shown that it results in mental health cost savings.
YOU can help foster wider use of assisted outpatient treatment to help qualifying individuals with severe mental illness get on the road to recovery.
- READ our project proposal here.
- SEND the proposal to your US congressperson and senator and tell them you support a national AOT demonstration project because it would help save lives and families from the negative outcomes of non-treatment. Be sure to include your personal story about how untreated mental illness impacts your family and would benefit from wider use of AOT.
