Los Angeles County Outpatient Conservatorship Program

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2023

Mental Health Conservatorships in California are traditionally established by a referral from an acute psychiatric facility for an individual who is involuntarily detained because he/she is gravely disabled. Grave disability is defined as the inability to provide for your food, clothing or shelter due to a mental illness. Acute psychiatric facilities are designated to send referrals to the County Conservatorship Investigator, the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) in the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. While California law allowed for a conservatorship to be established on an outpatient basis, there was no process by which a referral could be successfully submitted to OPG. The Outpatient Conservatorship Pilot Program designated the Homeless Outreach Mobile Engagement (HOME) Team to submit referrals for conservatorship without requiring the subject of the referral to be hospitalized. The HOME team and OPG office established a collaborative committee to develop program guidelines, develop training and met weekly to review potential candidates for conservatorship investigation. The pilot ensured that all alternatives to conservatorship were considered but advanced innovative strategies such as court testimony via video from the streets, testimony from the psychiatrist with a long standing relationship with the client to avoid hearsay testimony, and avoided the trauma of a hospitalization. After demonstrating outpatient conservatorships could be obtained, the pilot program was transitioned to an ongoing program with the expansion of HOME to become a comprehensive program serving the entire County with designation as a referral source for conservatorships.