County’s most vulnerable residents get help

Allen County Probate Court Judge Todd Kohlrieser presided over the organizational meeting of the Allen County Guardianship Services Board on Monday. Six members were issued the oath of office as inaugural board members. The agency’s mission is to help residents with developmental disabilities and mental health issues navigate the complexities of day-to-day life.

LIMA — The most vulnerable members of the Allen County community got a helping hand Monday when the county’s initial Guardianship Services Board transformed from a vision into a reality.

Allen County Probate Court Judge Todd Kohlrieser issued the oaths of office to six board members as the board, which has been several years in the planning stage, became an official entity. It’s function, the judge said, is to help residents with developmental disabilities and mental health issues navigate the complexities of day-to-day life.

“This is something that’s been needed for years,” Kohlrieser said of the board.

The Guardianship Services Board is an initiative of the Allen County Probate Court, Mental Health & Recovery Services Board of Allen County and Allen County Board of Developmental Disabilities. Its mission is providing adult guardianship services for residents of Allen County who have been determined to be legally incompetent.

The three appointed members whose positions are mandated in the Ohio Revised Code are representatives of the probate court, the county Board of Developmental Disabilities and the Mental Health and Recovery Services board. Filling those seats on the new guardianship board, respectively, are Tim Hamman, Angie Herzog and Mike Schoenhofer.

Those three inaugural members, in turn, voted to welcome three more members to the fledgling guardianship board. Joining the panel by unanimous vote were Christa Bauer, representing Lima Memorial Health System; Denise Cook, representing Mercy Health-St. Rita’s Medical Center; and Laura Voth, representing the United Way of Greater Lima.

“This is a diverse group of people that make up this board, with representation from the mental health field, an attorney and representatives of the United Way, Memorial Hospital and Mercy Health,” the judge said. “They’re all volunteers and they have accepted four-year terms.”

Kohlrieser said attorney’s throughout the greater Lima area have been donating their services in recent years to help provide legal assistance. But over the years, for a variety of reasons, the number of lawyers who are available to step up when needed has declined.

“We needed an entity to care for the needs of the citizens who fall under the umbrella of the Guardianship Services Board in making sure their needs — from scheduling doctor’s appointments to scheduling other appointments to researching options for long-term care — are taken care of,” Kohlrieser said.

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County’s most vulnerable residents get help

County hopes longer psychiatric hold will stem conservatorships

The Marin County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution last week to allow for an additional 30-day involuntary psychiatric hold, resulting in a total of 47 days of possible treatment for those deemed a danger to themselves or others. The additional hold will give clinicians more time to assess and stabilize clients, who are admitted to Marin General Hospital in Kentfield. “The legislative intent of [the resolution] is to really reduce the number of gravely disabled persons who we conserve,” said Dr. Jei Africa, director of the Behavioral Health and Recovery Services division of Marin Health and Human Services. He was referring to conservatorships, in which a judge appoints a legal guardian responsible for managing an individual’s financial affairs, health care and living arrangements, significantly curtailing that person’s civil rights. People placed under the extended holds are still entitled to due process through a review hearing after the initial 72-hour evaluation, or by filing for habeas corpus. In 2015, the latest year for which data is publicly available, 1,248 people in Marin were held for an initial 72-hour psychiatric evaluation. Out of those, 82 were assigned to permanent conservatorships. Similar resolutions extending the psychiatric hold have passed in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Solano, resulting in fewer permanent conservatorships—only 38 in San Francisco in 2015. In Marin, the resolution was originally proposed in May, but was put on hold to allow for more community feedback. Several members of the public spoke up at last Tuesday’s meeting in support of the resolution (no one spoke against it). The executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Kelli Finley, offered strong support for the resolution as an additional resource, and said she’s had discussions with over 300 family members and consumers dealing with mental illness. Alyssa Bradley, a lifetime Marin resident who said she was held—she believes wrongly—at Saint Helena Hospital for six days under an involuntary psychiatric hold, also spoke in support. “I do think this is a very, very, very good idea to have these 30-day holds…to fully assess [a client’s] situation before they are forced into a conservatorship,” she said.

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County hopes longer psychiatric hold will stem conservatorships