Assisted Outpatient Treatment, also known as AOT, is court ordered outpatient treatment for people with mental health disabilities.

This publication is a fact sheet that talks the treatment rights that you have if a judge orders you into AOT.

You have a right to an attorney if the county has asked the court to order you to AOT. If you want a lawyer but don’t have enough money to pay for one, you can ask the judge to give you a public defender.

If a judge decides that you qualify for AOT under the law and you are ordered to AOT, you are entitled to specific types of treatment specifically tailored to meet your needs.1

• For more information about who qualifies for AOT under the law, you can read the publication called “Who Can Be Ordered to AOT.”
• For information about the AOT hearing, you can read the publication called “Your Rights if the County is Asking for AOT and AOT Hearings.” An AOT hearing is where a judge decides whether or not you qualify for AOT under the law.

AOT Treatment

Your AOT treatment must:

• Be directed by you and use psychosocial rehabilitation and recovery principles.2
  • Psychosocial rehabilitation supports personal recovery, successful community integration, and can improve qualify of life for people with mental health disabilities. This might include:
    • Medication management
    • Symptoms management
    • Substance use management
    • Independent living skills
    • Education work skills
    • Communication skills
    • Problem-solve and coping skills
    • Building social support
  • Recovery principles are:3
    • Self-direction, where “[i]ndividuals determine their own path of recovery.”
    • Individualized and person-centered, where recovery is based your unique characteristics rather than the same services for everyone.
    • Empowerment, where you have say in decisions that will affect you.
    • Holistic, where all aspects of your life are considered.
    • Non-linear, where recovery can include “setbacks” and might require “learning from experience.”
    • Strengths-based, where recovery focuses on you building many different skills and talents.
    • Peer Support, where you give others help and they help you.
    • Respect, where recovery does not involve negative thoughts about yourself or people with mental disabilities.
    • Responsibility, where you are in charge of helping your recovery and wellness.
    • Hope, where there is the thought that you will have a good future.
• Be connected with your other AOT help, support, and treatment.4
• Provide for housing that is immediate, transitional, permanent or all of these.5
• Be connected to a personal services coordinator that gives you and makes sure you get the help you need.6
  • The personal services coordinator must:
    • Do an assessment of what you need.
    • Make your personal services plan.
    • Link you with community help that is right for you, and
    • Keep track of how good the help you are getting is.

Individual Personal Services Plan

Your individual personal services plans must be:7

• Right for your age.
• Right for your gender.
• Right for your culture.

Your individual personal services plan must make sure that it helps you as much as possible:8

• Live in housing that is the most independent and least restrictive in the local community.
• Live in supportive housing that helps you keep custody of your children or tries to reunite you with your children.
• Work or do a productive activity at the highest level based on your skills and knowledge.
• Have friends and family and do community activities outside your home.
• Get the education or vocational learning that is right for you.
• Make enough money to live on.
• Manage your own illness and make decisions about your life (both daily and long-term).
• Get physical healthcare and be as physically healthy as possible.
• Decrease or eliminate serious antisocial or criminal actions by you and reduce or eliminate your contact with the criminal justice system.
• Lessen or eliminate distress caused by your mental illness symptoms.
• Make it so that you do not use dangerous addictive substances.

Mental Health Team

• You have a right to a highly trained mental health team.9
  • Each person on this team should not have more than 10 clients at a time.
  • This team is multidisciplinary. This means your team should include different types of providers such as a psychiatrist, nurse, case worker, and peer advocate and address issues involving both your mental health treatment and other needs or goals -- such as housing, income or benefits, a job, education or social or family concerns.
  • This team should be community-based and mobile. This means that the team works in the community and can bring services and support to you, when needed.

Medication Against Your Wishes

• You have a right not to be forced to take medication you do not want to take (involuntary medication).10
• If you do not follow AOT and are put in a psychiatric hospital against your wishes (involuntarily), you may be forced to take medication that you do not want to take. This can happen if there is an emergency or there is an order for medication after a hearing to decide if you do not have the ability to refuse the medication treatment (this is also called a capacity hearing).11
  • For more information about how it is decided that you are not following AOT, you can read the publication called “Not Following AOT.”

Relationships – Family, Children and Peers

While you are in AOT, the county must give you the following help if it is right for you:12

• Family help and guidance.
• Parenting help and guidance.
• Peer support or self-help.

Older Adults and People with Disabilities/Veterans

• If you are an older adult and/or a person with a disability, the county must help you with things that older adults and/or people with disabilities need.13
• If you are a veteran, coordination with veteran services.14

Young Adults 25 Years Old or Younger

If you are a young adult in AOT with a serious mental illness and experiencing homelessness or at high risk of becoming homeless, the county must give you more help that is customized for young adults.15

Women from Diverse Cultural Backgrounds

• If you are a woman or someone from a diverse cultural background, the county must give you help that is specific your community’s needs.16
• This must include:
  • Supportive housing where children can live too.
  • Substance treatment that focuses on trauma and abuse for your gender.
  • Job training that is not based on gender but also considers women’s needs.

People Who Have Untreated Serious Mental Illness and are At Risk of Homelessness

• If you have experienced untreated serious mental illness for less than one year, may not need a full range of AOT services, and are at risk of homelessness, the county must:17
  • Help you make an individual family and support services plan.
  • Provide you with services specifically designed to meet your needs.

Additional Information

If you need more information or have questions you can:

• Ask your lawyer. You have a right to an attorney if the county has asked (petitioned) the court to order you to AOT. If you want a lawyer but don’t have enough money, ask the judge to give you a public defender. You will only have to pay the public defender if you have the money to.
• Contact your county’s Patient’s Rights Advocate. To find the Patient’s Rights Advocate where you live, (916) 504-5810 and ask for your local Patient’s Rights Advocate or click on this link: https://www.disabilityrightsca.org/post/patients-rights-advocacy-directory.
• Call Disability Rights California at 1-800-776-5746.

• 1. Welf. & Inst. Code § 5348(a). All code sections cited below are from the Welfare and Institutions Code.
• 2. § 5348(a)(2)(F).
• 3. 10 Fundamental Components of Recovery, NAMI California, https://namica.org/resources/recovery/.
• 4. § 5348(a)(2)(G).
• 5. § 5348(a)(2)(J).
• 6. § 5348(a)(3).
• 7. § 5348(a)(4).
• 8. § 5348(a)(4)(A)-(J).
• 9. § 5348(a)(1).
• 10. § 5348(c).
• 11. § 5332.
• 12. § 5348(a)(2)(E).
• 13. § 5348(a)(2)(C), (D).
• 14. § 5348(B).
• 15. § 5348(H).
• 16. § 5348(I).
• 17. § 5348(K).