this sometimes our law enforcement and care shflts must have to get to someone early it could prevent many more deaths on the street so i'm thankful particularly to amanda and rick on behalf of laura to remember what occurred in that case but also the cases that mark has security guard u suggested have happened and to many others there are many, many other stories about people on the streets we know their habit they will get some respite we'll pull them off the streets and get the hot teams with so many and at the same time hundreds of individuals will repeat and going back to their

self-medication and experiencing the psych challenges they have we've got to have better answers so we seek laura's law as a tool to help us to become even more of a convention city that's not about the money no more or the housing it really is paying attention to something we've not paid attention too again, i want to thank all the people standing behind me we hope seriously that the supervisors and board will find 6 total that will support t this but we're prepared to go to the ballot i'll support it 0 we can assure ourselves we're going everything possible for the elements for the individuals that exist on our streets that augment to have better care

thank you for being here (clapping.) thank you mayor ed lee. at this point, i want to invite up nick and amanda laura's parents that have been incredible leaders on this issue ever since that tragic day (clapping.) >> thank you. good morning can i hear me. many families live with mental illness everyday. my family was not one of them. i never thought about mental health treatment and care until 13 years ago i wish i had in january 2004 my daughter laura was murdered she was going into

the nevada health you county and someone opened up and shot her four times she was shot twice in the heart and died constantly. when the ramp package at the client 3 people laid dead and 3 injured and a you community was shaken and the world was diminished by the loss of an incredible young woman. laura was bright and beautiful at the age 19, in fact, i have a picture of her i'll show later she had kind neutrons and spirit an outstanding student in the midst of ore campaign for the student campaign where she was in college. she had a tremendous future and

wanted to make a positive difference in the world she was on her way to doing that. my life was turned pound upside down i was initially in shock. my grief was pronounced i thought my daughter would outlive me i miss her everyday. nick and i needed to somehow understand and get our mind around how we lost our daughter who did this we learned more about laura's murder his name is scott in his late 30s and had severe mental illness and rapidly doing downhill he was a guy client but missing appoint

his family couldn't intervene they only hoped that nothing would happen. scott thorp was apprehend the same day that laura was killed and he initially was incompetent to stand trial and plead guilty and found not guilty by reason of insanity. under a pencil commitment at the hospital one receives medical treatment. in some ways scott received the worse punishment improvement in his mental condition to the point that he new fully understands and rthsz what he did he has to live with that. his mental improvement and

stability and insight, of course, too late for him he'll be forever incarcerated my too late for laura. to nick and i that is totally background we wait until someone does a crime and then they get treatment we thought there was a better approach he nick will talk about the legislation that ultimately ended up with laura's law but we knew and what we wanted to work for was getting treatment green before someone deteriorates and before their imcan't before that he do harm to them or on the we thought it made sense to get it before going to jail or prison doing is

not only better for individuals for all enacted by severe mental illness we worked to pass laura's law in nevada couldn't and i'm very proud of our county that's leading the way the outcomes are fabulous they're far better than we ever envisioned and i think we can feel that due to this tragedy we indeed making a positive differences for the laura. i wish we had her back i'm glad we, do that i'll i'm going to turn it over to my husband nick and (clapping.) >> i have a lump in my troet

after that. when laura died there were 2 things we needed to find out early on the facts about what happened. we eventually find out the facts took a long time but we also needed to know why it happened and we actually came to that understanding relatively quickly that laura in a sense was a victim of a failing mental health system. my sister actually, my stepsister karen had some experience in this area her bilingual father was a brienlt traffic engineer in yale he had

schizophrenia he threatened to kill any sister and stepmother back in those days they got her eir him into treatment at valley state hospital. but she had understanding of mental health issue it's not trusting true our widower family had inform experience she understood and politically was connected heaving involved with the administration and knew lobbyists in sacramento and was able to get us in touch with assemblywoman hell con thomas and hell one was a psych nurse and sponsoring legislation at that time, called a bit 1421 the precursor of laura's law. and so in the early days we

didn't know what else to do except strike back at the system so we become involved with laura's law there were others here heavily involved randell and i give him and others huge amaze of credit. so we watched the protective active process and i'll say it is savage making, you know, it's somewhat ugly you don't want to know what's in it laura's law was like sausage making. you know what came out was whatnot what we hoped for but a step going in the right direction as we got involved we

learned more about mental illness and learned mental illness is a boom condition a chemical condition of the brain and learned that many people with severe mental illness have a condition lack of insight. those are people with severe mental illness won't seek treatment and laura's law is aimed at this population. mayor ed lee and supervisor farrell said a little bit about the law but basically laura's law allows parents and others to contact their mental health director to seek a court order to engage the client or patient and assaulted outpatient treatment.

it's very interesting how laura's law works it has no real teeth to it there's no really compulsion but laura's law does work laura's law is implemented or something similar to it in this state's and rests on the assumes that most people are law-abiding citizens and will stay engaged in treatment. it's been in nevada county mayor ed lee i think talked about the results in new york state ken raze law and laura's law is modeled after that and the results have been similar to what new york state has seen. laura's law way fully implemented in nevada county in

2008, it wasn't implemented out of the kindness of a supervisors heart it was implemented as a result of a court settlement that we made with the nevada county. but since it's implementation there's been an enormous buy in but all facts and circumstances in nevada county they've been encouraging way beyond what we anticipated. of those referred to assaulted out patient treatment over 50 percent engage in treatment voluntarily so the com pully aspect of laura's law is not used more often than used it's important to remember through so there's a collaborative progress whereby the clients meet with the judge and through a process

do engageful in treatment and finally full treatment. in nevada county there's been documented 64 percent decline in psych hospitals there's been a 27 percent decline in incarceration for prison and a 33 percent decline in homeless days and there's been a '64 percent decline in emergency interventions. overall for every tdr spent on treatment under you assisted outpatient that's been documented one dollar and $0.84 avoided costs it clearly saves lives and money that's the com

patient thing to do as mayor ed lee said. image if san francisco implements laura's law it will have the same experience as nevada county >> thank you again to supervisor farrell and mayor ed lee we really appreciate our support this has been a long struggle but i said all the time you have two major county in one week that have come to this point and we hope it will lead to more thank you very much. >> (clapping) >> thank you to the wilcox family for coming down from nevada county and sharing your story. i want to introduce the director of our public health department barbara garcia (clapping.) good morning. i wanted to acknowledge the wilcox family thank you for your work.

the department of public health has an incredible health system we serve over thirty thousand people we looked at the political process this went through we developed a program for volunteering system in that the client what voluntarily come into the system and has a mandate treatment plan. with laura's the more important thing on the front end it allows for the family and providers and i want to acknowledge the providers who watch their patients fail and die because of the lack of compassionate treatment and they don't have the tool to mandatory the process it's important for the civil right of our plan through this process the advocacy of

insuring the people have the right through this law i believe it will and will look at the fact it those individuals and the ability of families to acknowledge the fact it is very difficult for families to acknowledge the fact they have a mentally ill child we have individual rights address protections of the information and adults don't have to share that with their families we have barriers for the providers as well as the family members to seek access for care for their family members. we believe that treatment works and people do better when they have treatment we've watched patients become active and good providers in the community we do not want people into the

emergency care department but help folks engage in treatment. in infected the department will especially up we have over one dozen years of experience this will be a critic court means and we have the means to work with the court system as well as to immediately set up an assisted treatment and we have the state support for funding to make sure this passes and i know the city will also support any services. i look forward to working with the community and the advocates to make sure we work through the process and that we try to bring this program to fruition to make sure that more people have access through the treatment and more family members and the

providers have the ability to take care of their family members and patients thank you very much (clapping) >> thank you director garcia at this point, i'd like to call up director joann associate professor and a physician at psych emergency service and for case management and has 20 years of experience at sf general dr. ralph (clapping). >> thank you supervisors. that's very kind i wish it were only 20 years it's more like 35 (laughter) >> so as you heard from our director barbara garcia san francisco's behavorial system officers thirty thousand san franciscans every year mostly

volunteer treatment from prevention through crisis with goals of wellness and recovery this includes the thirty thousand includes 73 hundred that visits psych care every year a that's the severely and chronically schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. decades ago those are people that would have been locked up for years and years, however, thanks to improvements in treatment reform the commitment laws and the doctrine of the laeftd restrictive they've been treated in our outpatient treatment unfortunately, that leafs behind a small number of

patients they k3467b9 refuse treatment and others demonstrate success often several years at that time, but not able to stay in the treatment not recognize or remember they have a chronic illnesses oftentimes after a year of or two of treatment they don't need it and stop seeing the treatment team and go off the treatment and start to deteriorate the next step they have their families and friends trying to get them back this only end when the police arrest them on the 5150 or harming themselves or others do i hear a motion to approve the minutes at that point in time at that point, they become homeless and

typically require treatment to restables. this insight is not a character trait or a political opinion such patients see it in other people not themselves it's not a deficit of intelligence we've treated severely chronic will i ill people that have degrees in psychy. this reflects a problem. which is just greek for no knowledge of the disease and not understand the deficit of a minldz and it is seen when a person has a paddlers arm and seen in dementia and agreeing

schizophrenia it represents deterioration. but the important thing once we recognize this way to we can structure the damage. laura's law is an outpatient treatment designed for two inteenlz to do if number one external support and motivation to the patient internal essence of maflgs when a judge says you need to do this that makes is an expression the second is if the motivation fails the treatment team will be enabled and the family to intervention in a patient drops out of treatment

if caught quickly this kind of deterioration can be referred in twenty-four hours within the emergency service and the patient maybe not having problems. the number of patient in san francisco it qualify for laura's law is small maybe one hundred but ouch extremely high yourselves of ambulance and in patient services and incarcerated and with laura's law in place we hope to see the reduction in arrests and others problems with people who are deteriorating and not seeking treatment. thank you very much (clapping.) thank you very much dr. and i want to call of the vice president as wilcox has been

incredible source of support thank you very much >> hi i'm randell i represents psychiatrists about 35 hundred of them it's observed from dr. russel testimony psychiatrists have to deal with people who are neglected they and they're very, very sick psychiatrists around the state staff the emergency department and the emergency service department they're the in patient psychiatrists in the state hospitals and state prisons and because of those positions psychiatrists know as well as anyone whoops when you negligent people they end up in the institutions and they're very, very difficult to treat at the late stage, if you will,

career. if you look at those individuals and trace back the story of any particular one you will find missed opportunities in the community to intervention in those lives or you'll find many opportunity that were not suv adequate or efficient and because of the missed opportunity those individuals end up very, very sick and it is a problem that san francisco knows well. i will give you a perm be antidote by way of explaining how i become involved i represent psychiatrists but a board member 15 years ago, i got involved the in the drafting of laura's law my own son had a psych disorder one was the structure of a court or legal system helping treatment

officials gain compliance in treatment and the other is effective services. my son was diagnosed before 16 puc. the was the most stable for 10 years during the period between when he was diagnosed and his 18th birthday i have a story similar to the one that supervisor farrell told in which he bausz because weekly probation officer would come and ask questions he'd ask my son are you baby boomer your father and seeing our psychiatrist and taking our meds. that weekly contact even though we have very, very good certifies that weekly contract was the difference when he turned 18 he took off for 9

months and arrested in 3 couldn't and jailed three or four times even if e he was within marino and eureka and sacramento he was living on the streets. i know personally and from stories of the family how necessary it is to have an effective tool that's why psychiatrists in the state appreciate the mayor to help change the lives permanently of folks with mental illness that are two difficult the special tool of laura's a law can help 0 unfortunate outcomes. thank you (clapping.) thank you, mr. hague arrest thank you for everyone coming in particular the wilcox family

remember this is about helping individuals and this is the most compassionate community dreven process here in san francisco i look forward to get it through the board of supervisors and if not taking it to the board so we have laura's law here in san francisco. thanks everyone

(clapping.) >>