Kendras Law
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It is the weekend and you are so glad to be done with work for that week that you decide to go down to a local bar to meet with some friends. You don’t decide to drive so you walk down to the subway and take the subway over to the bar. This was the scene for a woman named Kendra Webdale. She was just standing in line waiting for the train to arrive in the station when a man named Andrew Goldstein came up to her and pushed her in front of the train as it was coming into the station. This wasn’t an act of hatred towards Kendra it was an act of mental unstableness on the part of Andrew. Through all of this in less than a year after her death New York State decided to make a law to help protect from this happening again. That law is called Kendra’s Law.
Kendra’s law can best be defined as a procedure for obtaining court orders for certain individuals with mental illness to receive and accept outpatient treatment (OMH 1). All that that means is that these people are set up with a program coordinator who oversees them to make sure that they will not relapse again and go crazy. These people need to have a very close relationship with their clients because if there is no trust between these two people then stuff can go wrong with the patient like they will stop taking their medication, or they might become violent or suicidal, or they might require further hospitalization. This is a very long and drawn out process in the court system. The courts work together with the physician that examined this person to make sure that they are doing the right thing. There is a very long list of stuff that has to be met before you are placed on outpatient help. This person has to meet all of these or else he is not placed on help. This list contains eight things on it that are the basis for outside help. The first thing is they need to be eighteen. If the person is under eighteen then he is placed in a halfway house for a time no shorter than one year. The second thing is you have to suffer from a mental illness. That makes sense because that is why you are being tried in the first place. The third thing is you are unlikely to survive safely in a community without supervision based on clinical determination. They just don’t want you to go back to your normal life because you might relapse. The fourth thing is you have to have a history non-adherence with treatment before. This non-adherence with treatment means that that has influenced you while you were in jail or a hospital or because of this it has caused you to make one or more serious threats of violence either to yourself or someone else. The fifth thing is you are unlikely to voluntarily participate in treatment. This means that they have to force you to get help. The sixth thing is in examination of your mental health history you will need assisted outpatient help. They do not want a relapse or deterioration which would be likely to result in serious harm to self or others. The seventh thing is you are likely to benefit from assisted outpatient help. The last thing is if you have a certain thing in your health plan then that will be taken into account (OMH 2). If you meet all of the requirements then you are placed on assisted outpatient help. This is all done in the courts. From there they write you a prescription.
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