Mental health: involuntary treatment.

Existing law, the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, provides for the involuntary detention and treatment of persons with specified mental health disorders. Under the act, when a person, as a result of a mental health disorder, is a danger to others, or to themselves, or gravely disabled, the person may, upon probable cause, be taken into custody and placed in a facility designated by the county and approved by the State Department of Health Care Services for up to 72 hours for evaluation and treatment. Existing law authorizes specified individuals to take a person into custody pursuant to these provisions, including designated members of a mobile crisis team and professional persons designated by the county. Existing law authorizes a county behavioral health director to develop procedures for the county's designation and training of professionals who will be authorized to perform these functions. This bill would authorize a county to develop a training relating to those procedures for designation. The bill would require a county behavioral health director who denies or revokes an individual's designation to provide a written notification to the person who made the request for designation of the individual, and the individual who is the subject of the request for designation, describing the reasons for denial or revocation. The bill would require the County of Sacramento, if the county has adopted those procedures, to, by April 1, 2022, issue a written policy regarding those procedures. The bill would require the policy to contain specified components, including, among others, a requirement that the county behavioral health director of the County of Sacramento designate individuals employed by the City of Sacramento under certain circumstances. The bill would also prohibit a designated member of a mobile crisis team or a designated professional person from being held civilly or criminally liable, as a result of detaining or transporting a person pursuant to those provisions, for any action by the person detained or transported if they are released at or before the end of the 72-hour detention. By imposing new duties on counties, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the County of Sacramento and the City of Sacramento. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.