Mental health services: gravely disabled persons.

Existing law, the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, provides for the involuntary commitment and treatment of a person who is a danger to themselves or others or who is gravely disabled. Existing law also provides for a conservator of the person or estate to be appointed for a person who is gravely disabled. Existing law, for the purposes of involuntary commitment and conservatorship, defines "gravely disabled," among other things, as a condition in which a person, as a result of a mental health disorder, is unable to provide for the person's basic personal needs for food, clothing, or shelter. This bill would authorize a county to instead use a definition of "gravely disabled" for these purposes that would read, in part, a condition in which a person, as a result of a mental health disorder, is incapable of making informed decisions about, or providing for, the person's own basic personal needs for food, clothing, or shelter without significant supervision and assistance from another person and, as a result of being incapable of making these informed decisions, the person is at risk of substantial bodily harm, dangerous worsening of a concomitant serious physical illness, significant psychiatric deterioration, or mismanagement of the person's essential needs that could result in bodily harm. The bill would authorize this condition to be demonstrated by the person's treatment history and recent acts or omissions.