John Nutting

She put together a very large, thorough work-study group over eight months involving medical professionals and parents and opponents to the PTP law.

so that you really got a chance to thrash out what had worked in other states and what didn't work in other states.

So you tried to get grassroots help in drafting something so that it actually interviewed a psychiatrist that had practiced in New York for years and it was familiar with their law, could tell you what he liked and what he didn't like about the initial draft of the main law.

You have a better chance, I think, of getting something to be run as...

As they wanted, you know, at our district court hearings, law enforcement or a medical professional or a guardian can file the application to have a PTP district court hearing.

And the court notifies the parties involved, including the person.

The court sets an attorney for that person so they are represented during the hearing.

And so it's a judge, it's a decision of a district court judge after a hearing where there's give and take and questions and answers and challenges made to assumptions.

Some states just have a PTP type area.

AOT order is just done administratively, boom, the judge stamps it and all of a sudden you're under a PTP court order.

And that just doesn't have the effectiveness as the judge at the end of the hearing, looking at the young person saying, this is my decision.

This is why you may have had six hospitalizations and you've been homeless and goes over the history.

And this is what it's going to be for you going forward.

You're going to work with an ACT team or a group home or intensive case manager in the community.

We're going to try to get you a job and keep you out of jails and hospitals and see if we can start having some successes in your life.

Judge also explains to the person that if you stop your treatment plan, you're back that evening in the hospital.

They know that.

And so they, for the most part, not always, but they stay on their treatment plan and you can start to have some successes with

And a psychiatrist told me, he says, somebody with anosognosia, they're all probably always going to have anosognosia.

If somebody's been on a one-year PTP and was then extended for another year, he says, I can sit down and talk with him, use something he called backdoor insight.