Today, Politico published an article titled “New Study Torpedoes Mental Health Treatment Mandate,” highlighting a recently published evaluation of New York’s Involuntary Outpatient Commitment (IOC) law. The study is one of the first major outcome evaluations of Kendra’s Law to be published in more than a decade.
IOC—more commonly known as Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) and called Kendra’s Law in New York—allows courts to order people living in the community to follow prescribed treatment plans. Those who do not comply may be brought back before the court and can be involuntarily transported to a psychiatric facility for evaluation.
One of the longstanding questions surrounding IOC has been whether reported positive outcomes result primarily from the court order itself or from the intensive services and supports that typically accompany an order. This new research goes a long way to answering that question. It concludes that expanding voluntary supports and ensuring people know about and can access them “could produce similar outcomes without the attendant harms” of IOC orders.
According to Politico, the findings are “politically inconvenient” for Governor Kathy Hochul, who recently supported legislation expanding the use of Assisted Outpatient Treatment in New York.
You can read the full study here.
Roots Up is currently planning a third event on IOC featuring Nev Jones, one of the study’s co-authors. We’ll share more information as soon as details are finalized.
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