The Politics of California’s CARE Act (Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Act)

Clare Cortright, Esq. is a California licensed attorney and mental health consumer with lived experience of serious mental illness. She has extensive experience defending clients on civil commitment holds and involuntary medication petitions under California’s Lanterman-Petris-Short Act. She also has served as a mental health provider in residential mental health programs. She is the Policy Director for Cal Voices, California’s oldest peer-run organization. She works on state-level mental health legislation and policy. Her interests include the civil rights of persons with mental health disabilities and the incorporation of abolitionist principles in the mental health peer movement. Session title - “The Politics of California’s CARE Act (Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Act)” The Law & Mental Health Conference is the premiere online educational event dedicated to the intersection of law and mental illness. Since 2000 the Conference has brought together expert speakers, teachers, and practitioners with legal, clinical, and lived experience. The Conference is designed for attorneys, law enforcement, public and private clinicians, public healthcare and hospital administrators, social workers, policy designers and legislators, and organizations and individuals involved with the care and welfare of people with mental illness, addiction, and alcoholism – and most importantly, for those with lived experience of severe mental illness. The 2024 Law & Mental Health Conference on psychosis was held June 10, 11 2024, and is produced by Jason Renaud for the Mental Health Association of Portland