Revision to Kevin's Law means quicker treatment for the mentally ill

[TexasTowelie]

On any given day in Michigan, they can be found wandering the streets, or in shelters, jails and prison. There are an estimated 300,000 adults with serious mental illness in Michigan.

Advocates say a measure signed into state law in November should make it easier to secure court-ordered mental-health treatment for those who may be too sick to recognize they need help. It allows families or guardians to seek court-ordered treatment for the mentally ill before they reach a crisis stage where they have to be hospitalized or do something dangerous to themselves or others.

But at the same time, caution critics, the revision alone won’t fix a state mental-health system still riddled by gaps in access and treatment.

“It’s not a cure-all for the problems of a broken mental health system,” said Betsy Johnson, legislative and policy director for the Treatment Advocacy Center, a Virginia-based nonprofit advocacy group for improved treatment of severe mental illness.

Read more: http://bridgemi.com/2017/01/revision-to-kevins-law-means-quicker-treatment-for-the-mentally-ill/

[Warpy]

1. It's a start

Families with members who are mentally ill have had their hands tied by a much too stringent interpretation of "danger to oneself or others" for far too long and the waste of human life is appalling.

There has to be a happy medium between using state mental health hospitals as warehouses for people nobody wants any more and the non system we have now that throws them out on the street to die, homeless and untreated.