Section 5806.

The State Department of Health Care Services shall establish service standards that ensure that members of the target population are identified, and services provided to assist them to live independently, work, and reach their potential as productive citizens. The department shall provide annual oversight of grants issued pursuant to this part for compliance with these standards. These standards shall include, but are not limited to, all of the following:

(a) A service planning and delivery process that is target population based and includes the following:

(1) Determination of the numbers of clients to be served and the programs and services that will be provided to meet their needs. The local director of mental health shall consult with the sheriff, the police chief, the probation officer, the mental health board, contract agencies, and family, client, ethnic, and citizen constituency groups as determined by the director.

(2) Plans for services, including outreach to families whose severely mentally ill adult is living with them, design of mental health services, coordination and access to medications, psychiatric and psychological services, substance abuse services, supportive housing or other housing assistance, vocational rehabilitation, and veterans' services. Plans also shall contain evaluation strategies, that shall consider cultural, linguistic, gender, age, and special needs of minorities in the target populations. Provision shall be made for staff with the cultural background and linguistic skills necessary to remove barriers to mental health services due to limited-English-speaking ability and cultural differences. Recipients of outreach services may include families, the public, primary care physicians, and others who are likely to come into contact with individuals who may be suffering from an untreated severe mental illness who would be likely to become homeless if the illness continued to be untreated for a substantial period of time. Outreach to adults may include adults voluntarily or involuntarily hospitalized as a result of a severe mental illness.

(3) Provision for services to meet the needs of target population clients who are physically disabled.

(4) Provision for services to meet the special needs of older adults.

(5) Provision for family support and consultation services, parenting support and consultation services, and peer support or self-help group support, where appropriate for the individual.

(6) Provision for services to be client-directed and that employ psychosocial rehabilitation and recovery principles.

(7) Provision for psychiatric and psychological services that are integrated with other services and for psychiatric and psychological collaboration in overall service planning.

(8) Provision for services specifically directed to seriously mentally ill young adults 25 years of age or younger who are homeless or at significant risk of becoming homeless. These provisions may include continuation of services that still would be received through other funds had eligibility not been terminated due to age.

(9) Services reflecting special needs of women from diverse cultural backgrounds, including supportive housing that accepts children, personal services coordinator therapeutic treatment, and substance treatment programs that address gender-specific trauma and abuse in the lives of persons with mental illness, and vocational rehabilitation programs that offer job training programs free of gender bias and sensitive to the needs of women.

(10) Provision for housing for clients that is immediate, transitional, permanent, or all of these.

(11) Provision for clients who have been suffering from an untreated severe mental illness for less than one year, and who do not require the full range of services but are at risk of becoming homeless unless a comprehensive individual and family support services plan is implemented. These clients shall be served in a manner that is designed to meet their needs.

(12) Provision for services for veterans.

(b) A client shall have a clearly designated mental health personal services coordinator who may be part of a multidisciplinary treatment team who is responsible for providing or assuring needed services. Responsibilities include complete assessment of the client's needs, development of the client's personal services plan, linkage with all appropriate community services, monitoring of the quality and followthrough of services, and necessary advocacy to ensure that the client receives those services that are agreed to in the personal services plan. A client shall participate in the development of his or her personal services plan, and responsible staff shall consult with the designated conservator, if one has been appointed, and, with the consent of the client, consult with the family and other significant persons as appropriate.

(c) The individual personal services plan shall ensure that members of the target population involved in the system of care receive age-appropriate, gender-appropriate, and culturally appropriate services or appropriate services based on any characteristic listed or defined in Section 11135 of the Government Code, to the extent feasible, that are designed to enable recipients to:

(1) Live in the most independent, least restrictive housing feasible in the local community, and for clients with children, to live in a supportive housing environment that strives for reunification with their children or assists clients in maintaining custody of their children as is appropriate.

(2) Engage in the highest level of work or productive activity appropriate to their abilities and experience.

(3) Create and maintain a support system consisting of friends, family, and participation in community activities.

(4) Access an appropriate level of academic education or vocational training.

(5) Obtain an adequate income.

(6) Self-manage their illness and exert as much control as possible over both the day-to-day and long-term decisions that affect their lives.

(7) Access necessary physical health care and maintain the best possible physical health.

(8) Reduce or eliminate serious antisocial or criminal behavior and thereby reduce or eliminate their contact with the criminal justice system.

(9) Reduce or eliminate the distress caused by the symptoms of mental illness.

(10) Have freedom from dangerous addictive substances.

(d) The individual personal services plan shall describe the service array that meets the requirements of subdivision (c), and to the extent applicable to the individual, the requirements of subdivision (a).

(Amended by Stats. 2012, Ch. 34, Sec. 189. Effective June 27, 2012.)