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Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) recommending the Board adopt and authorize the Chair to sign Resolution 176-2023, to defer implementation of Senate Bill (SB) 43, Statutes 2023, Chapter 637, which expands the definition of “gravely disabled person,” under the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, to include persons with substance abuse as well as currently included mental health disorders, from January 1, 2024, until January 1, 2026 to provide HHSA adequate time to identify the treatment expansions, funding impacts, and staffing needs required to implement this bill.
FUNDING: N/A
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DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND:
The Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act, enacted in 1967, provides for the treatment of an individual who is a danger to themselves or others or who is found to be gravely disabled. The LPS Act authorizes the involuntarily commitment of such individual to be taken into custody on a temporary hold or a series of holds leading to a determination of their conservatorship, for an individual’s own protection.
Current law defines “gravely disabled” as a person who, as a result of a mental health disorder, is unable to provide for his or her basic personal needs for food, clothing or shelter. The LPS Act allows individuals who are gravely disabled to be appointed a conservator to arrange for mental health treatment and residential placement. A gravely disabled individual will receive an assessment and crisis intervention as necessary and may be placed in a psychiatric health facility or specialized hospital facility such as an institution for mental disease (IMD) in order to meet their treatment needs.
SB 43, Statutes 2023, Chapter 637, signed by the Governor on October 10, 2023, expands the definition of “gravely disabled” to include a person who, as a result of a mental health disorder, a severe substance use disorder (SUD), or a co-occurring mental health disorder and a severe SUD, or as a result of impairment by chronic alcoholism, is unable to provid...
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