Kendra's Law and Assisted Outpatient Treatment: What New York Counsel Should Understand About the AOT Standard

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Emergency Psychiatry and Civil Commitment

Assisted Outpatient Treatment is a court order to follow a treatment plan in the community, not an order to be confined. The petitions that fail usually argue current dangerousness as if this were an inpatient case, when the statute is built around a documented pattern over time. What the AOT statute actually requires Kendra's Law authorizes a court to order Assisted Outpatient Treatment for a person who, by reason of mental illness, is unlikely to survive safely in the community without supervision (Mental Hygiene Law §9.60). The statute does not ask whether the person is dangerous at the moment of the hearing; it asks whether a specific, enumerated history predicts relapse and deterioratio

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