The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recently awarded the University a $4.5 million grant to support the final phase of research about mental health social policy. The project is being conducted by the Research Network on Mandated Community Treatment, led by University Law Prof. John Monahan.
The University has been working in conjunction with the MacArthur Foundation since 1988, and has received $22 million from the foundation over the life of the program.
This research, which began in 2000, focuses on circumstances under which people can be required to receive mental health treatment and the methods that can be employed to ensure that people receive the treatment they need.
Andy Solomon, spokesperson for the MacArthur Foundation, said he hopes the University's work will further this discussion.
"Generally, mandating adherence to mental health treatment is a key issue in mental health law and policy today, and has become a central focus of the work of this research network," Solomon said. "There's little hard info on a national scale, and this research network, founded by the MacArthur Foundation, helps to fill that void. This research helps inform public policy and practice on this issue."
This grant will allow Monahan and his colleagues to complete the third and final phase of their work.
"We hope to find out which forms of leverage, if any, work best at getting people who need mental health care into mental health care," Monahan said.
The recent shift from treating patients reluctant to seek treatment, including involuntary patients, from inpatient to outpatient facilities makes the study increasingly relevant Monahan said.
"It appears that aspects of the social welfare and judicial system are used to induce people to adhere to mental health treatment," Monahan said.
The judicial and social welfare systems reinforce each other by using the same type of leverage in order to ensure that people adhere to treatment.
"If an individual is in subsidized housing, the support of the public housing will be dependent on the person taking the medication, and adhering to treatment," Monahan described as an example. "In the judicial system, often times, receiving treatment is a condition of probation. If they don't go, they violate probation."
As described in the 2002 article he co-authored, "Mandated Community Treatment: Beyond Outpatient Commitment," this issue has become a heated controversy. In the article, Monahan alluded to the 1999 passage of Kendra's Law, legislation which allows courts in the state of New York to mandate that some people suffering from mental illness receive outpatient treatment. Lawmakers have since been debating whether such legislation aids people who need treatment, or whether such legislation consists of "leash laws" that rob people of the autonomy to choose their own treatment.
Monahan cited objective research as a way to contribute to this debate without taking sides.
"One of the most controversial issues in mental health law today is whether treatment can be imposed on people who don't want it ---- the project doesn't take a position on this," Monahan said. "Public debate is best undertaken in an informed manner."
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