There is a phone number on the wall of every psychiatric unit in California that most patients never call, because nobody explains whose number it is. It belongs to a person whose only job is your rights.
The short answer: a patients' rights advocate is a person, independent of your treatment team, whom the county is required to provide. Every person held or admitted for psychiatric care has the right "to see and receive the services of a patient advocate who has no direct or indirect clinical or administrative responsibility for the person receiving mental health services."¹ "Each local mental health director shall appoint, or contract for the services of, one or more county patients' rights advocates," whose duties begin with receiving and investigating "complaints from or concerning recipients of mental health services residing in licensed health or community care facilities regarding abuse, unreasonable denial or punitive withholding of rights."² They "may conduct investigations if there is probable cause to believe that the rights of a past or present recipient of mental health services have been, may have been, or may be violated."³ They "shall have access to all clients and other recipients of mental health services in any mental health facility, program, or service at all times as are necessary to investigate or resolve specific complaints," on request the facility must, "when available," give them "reasonable space" to interview you "in privacy," and if a facility shuts them out they can go to court and get a hearing "within two judicial days."⁴ You, in turn, keep "the right to refuse to see any patient advocate."⁴ In the state hospitals the same work is done by a statewide contractor that, by law, has "no direct or indirect responsibility for providing services to persons with mental disabilities, except advocacy services."⁵
Why the job exists
The Legislature said it plainly: "Persons with mental illness are vulnerable to abuse, neglect, and unreasonable and unlawful deprivations of their rights," and earlier advocacy arrangements "may have had or have conflicts of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest."⁵ So the design principle is independence — an advocate who does not report to the ward, the hospital, or the doctor treating you.¹ ⁵
What they are required to do
The statute lists the county advocate's duties:²
- Receive and investigate complaints from or about people receiving mental health services in licensed health or community care facilities, "regarding abuse, unreasonable denial or punitive withholding of rights guaranteed under the provisions of Division 5" — the part of the code that contains the 5150 hold, the list of patients' rights, and the rules on medication, convulsive treatment, restraint and confidentiality.
- Monitor "mental health facilities, services and programs for compliance with statutory and regulatory patients' rights provisions."
- Train mental health providers on "mental health law and patients' rights."
- Ensure that recipients of mental health services in all licensed health and community care facilities "are notified of their rights."
- "Exchange information and cooperate with the patients' rights program."
What they can get to
Access is the advocate's power, and the statute writes it broadly. Advocates have access to every person receiving services "in any mental health facility, program, or service at all times as are necessary to investigate or resolve specific complaints," and during normal working and visiting hours for other advocacy work.⁴ They may "interview all persons providing the client with diagnostic or treatment services."⁴ "Upon request, all mental health facilities shall, when available, provide reasonable space for county patients' rights advocates to interview clients in privacy."⁴ A denial of access can be appealed to the head of the facility, the county mental health director, or the state department, "or may seek appropriate relief in the courts" — and if a petition shows a prima facie case, "a hearing on the merits of the petition shall be held within two judicial days of the filing of the petition."⁴
What they are not
They are not your lawyer, and they are not the person who decides whether you stay or go. Those decisions belong to the certification review hearing and the court. What happens after the 72 hours? → What an advocate can do is get the facts of a rights complaint on the record, in a facility that cannot lawfully keep them out, and tell you which of the things happening to you the law does and does not allow.
And you can say no. "Individual patients shall have a right to privacy which shall include the right to terminate any visit by persons who have access pursuant to this chapter and the right to refuse to see any patient advocate."⁴
What to bring them
The complaints the statute names — abuse, denial of rights, punitive withholding of rights — are the ones they are built for. In practice that means: restraint or seclusion used as punishment or without a debriefing; medication over your refusal without the capacity hearing; pressure to consent to convulsive treatment; denial of phone calls, visitors, your own clothes, or mail — listed rights that the person in charge of the facility may deny only "for good cause," with the denial "entered into the person's treatment record";¹ ⁷ not being told your rights on admission, or not being given the state's patients' rights handbook;¹ and being kept past the hold's clock. What is a 5150 hold? →
Write down the date, the time, the names you know, and what was said. Ask the unit for the advocate's number — the list of rights, including the right to see an advocate, must be posted — or find your county in the statewide directory.⁶
Finding yours
Each county's advocate is listed in a directory maintained by Disability Rights California, which also runs the California Office of Patients' Rights under contract with the state — the office that handles the five state hospitals and trains the county advocates.⁶ Los Angeles County's advocates, for example, are inside the county Department of Mental Health at (213) 738-4888 or (800) 700-9996; San Francisco's are the Mental Health Clients' Rights Advocates at (415) 552-8100 or (800) 729-7727.⁶ Numbers change; the directory is the place to check.
Worked example
A woman on a 14-day hold has not been allowed a phone call for two days; staff say it is "part of the treatment plan." Telephone access is a listed right, deniable only for good cause and only with the denial entered in her record.¹ ⁷ She asks a nurse for the patients' rights advocate's number; the unit must post the list of rights, and staff can give her the number.¹ The advocate can enter the unit "at all times as are necessary to investigate or resolve specific complaints," interview her in private, and interview the staff who made the decision.⁴ If the unit refuses the advocate entry, the advocate can be in front of a judge within two judicial days.⁴
Q&A
Q: Is the advocate a hospital employee? A: They must have "no direct or indirect clinical or administrative responsibility" for you.¹ In some counties the advocate is a county employee; in others the county contracts with an independent organisation.² Either way, they do not work for your treatment team.
Q: Can the advocate get me discharged? A: Not directly. Discharge from a hold turns on the certification review hearing and the court. The advocate can raise a rights complaint, and can tell you how to ask for the hearing. What happens after the 72 hours? →
Q: I'm a family member. Can I call the advocate? A: The duty covers complaints "from or concerning" recipients of services,² so a family member can raise one. What the advocate can tell you back is limited by confidentiality. The hospital won't tell me anything. Now what? →
Q: I was discharged last month. Too late? A: No. Investigations may be opened where the rights "of a past or present recipient of mental health services" may have been violated.³
Our therapist directory: See its current status →
Sources
- Cal. Welfare & Institutions Code §5325 — the listed rights of every person "involuntarily detained for evaluation or treatment" or "admitted as a voluntary patient for psychiatric evaluation or treatment," including (c) visitors, (d) telephone access, (e) writing materials and unopened mail, and (h) "To see and receive the services of a patient advocate who has no direct or indirect clinical or administrative responsibility for the person receiving mental health services"; the requirement that the rights be "prominently posted in the predominant languages of the community" and that each patient receive "a copy of a State Department of Health Care Services prepared patients' rights handbook" — california.public.law.
- Cal. Welfare & Institutions Code §5520 — "Each local mental health director shall appoint, or contract for the services of, one or more county patients' rights advocates"; duties (a)–(e) as quoted — california.public.law.
- Cal. Welfare & Institutions Code §5522 — "County patients' rights advocates may conduct investigations if there is probable cause to believe that the rights of a past or present recipient of mental health services have been, may have been, or may be violated" — california.public.law.
- Cal. Welfare & Institutions Code §5530 — (a) access "at all times as are necessary to investigate or resolve specific complaints," appeal of any denial of access, court relief with a hearing "within two judicial days of the filing of the petition"; (b) authority to "interview all persons providing the client with diagnostic or treatment services"; (c) "Upon request, all mental health facilities shall, when available, provide reasonable space for county patients' rights advocates to interview clients in privacy"; (d) "Individual patients shall have a right to privacy which shall include the right to terminate any visit by persons who have access pursuant to this chapter and the right to refuse to see any patient advocate" — california.public.law.
- Cal. Welfare & Institutions Code §5510 — legislative findings that "Persons with mental illness are vulnerable to abuse, neglect, and unreasonable and unlawful deprivations of their rights," earlier services that "may have had or have conflicts of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest," and the requirement that the statewide contractor have "no direct or indirect responsibility for providing services to persons with mental disabilities, except advocacy services" — california.public.law.
- Disability Rights California, Patients' Rights Advocacy Directory (county-by-county listing; Los Angeles and San Francisco entries as quoted, read 12 September 2026) — disabilityrightsca.org; Disability Rights California, California Office of Patients' Rights — the state-hospital program that also gives "technical assistance and training to Patients' Rights Advocates in each county" — disabilityrightsca.org; Department of Health Care Services, Patients' Rights — "the contractor providing the patients' rights investigative and advocacy services required in W&I Code, Section 5370.2 is the Disability Rights California, Office of Patients' Rights" — dhcs.ca.gov.
- Cal. Welfare & Institutions Code §5326 — "The professional person in charge of the facility or state hospital or his or her designee may, for good cause, deny a person any of the rights" in §5325 except the rights to refuse psychosurgery and to see a patient advocate (subdivisions (g) and (h)), with the right to refuse convulsive treatment restricted only as §5326.7 provides; "Denial of a person's rights shall in all cases be entered into the person's treatment record" — california.public.law.
Paid for by participating therapists. Inclusion is computed from availability data — never purchased. No ads, no data sold.