Mental Health Matters

The newsletter of the ISBA’s Mental Health Law Section

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2025 Articles

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline March 2025 Information on the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts Received Nearly $3 Million Mental Health Grant Award March 2025 The Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts received a competitive grant award from the Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Mental Health Services. AOIC will use the funds to operationalize a replicable and effective structure to increase the utilization of statutorily-created civil outpatient pathways to mental health care, also referred to as Assisted Outpatient Treatment, in Cook and McLean Counties. 
Editor’s Note By Sandra M. Blake January 2025 An introduction to the issue from the editor.
LAWPAC Needs You! January 2025 The Illinois Lawyers’ Political Action Committee (LAWPAC) needs your help to fulfill its mission to support the legislative goals of the ISBA and Illinois’ legal community.
Proposal for a Pilot Project to Enhance Case Management in Respondents Involving Both Mental Health Proceedings and Guardianship Proceedings By Judge Maureen Ward Kirby, Judge Daniel Malone, & Judge Susan Kennedy Sullivan January 2025 Because of the size of our Cook County Court system, in certain circumstances, there is a more burdensome, costly, and inefficient legal process where a resident is a respondent in two separate legal arenas: a resident is or will be ordered to outpatient treatment for his/her/their mental health treatment and where the same Cook County resident is or will benefit from some level of guardianship.
Response to the Proposal for a Pilot Project to Establish a Single Docket for Mental Health and Guardianship Proceedings By Ann Krasuski January 2025 The pilot project proposal seeks to create “a single court call wherein an assigned judge hears a case involving a resident with legal issues in both the County Division (Mental Health) and the Probate Division (Guardianship). The dually‐assigned judge would be … prepared to hear the matters under both areas of law.” There would be three “pathways” to this combined docket, according to the proposal.
1 comment (Most recent January 31, 2025)
While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence—A Conversation with the Author By Susan Goldberg March 2025 A discussion with author Meg Kissinger, whose memoir chronicles the mental illness in her family, and her work reporting on the “broken” mental health system.