Someone you love won't get help. What California actually lets you do.

You have been told to call the county, and you called the county. You have been told about "getting them 5150'd," about CARE Court, about conservatorship, and the advice contradicts itself. Here is what each of those things actually is, who is allowed to start it, and — the part almost nobody says out loud — what none of them can do.

Start with that. No California civil process can make an adult swallow medication. CARE Court says so twice over. Assisted outpatient treatment says so. What these routes do is create obligations on the county, a courtroom that keeps checking, and — in the last resort — a legal decision-maker. That is less than families hope for and more than they usually have.

Before any court: what you can do this week

You cannot place a 5150 hold, and neither can a private therapist. The authority runs to peace officers, staff of a county-designated evaluation facility, and specifically designated county professionals — on probable cause that the person, as a result of a mental health disorder, is a danger to others or to themselves, or gravely disabled.¹ What you can do is call your county's behavioral health access line or crisis team and describe what you have seen, in dates and specifics. Every county's line, verified against the county's own page →

Keep a written log from today: dates, what was said, what was done, hospitalisations, police contacts. Every route below runs on exactly that record. What a 5150 hold is and is not →

Route one: CARE Court

Live in all 58 counties since December 2024.² It is a civil court process, not a criminal one, and it puts the county under an order to deliver services.

Who qualifies — all six, not any of six. The person must be 18 or over; currently experiencing a serious mental disorder with a diagnosis in the schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders class, or — new since 1 January 2026 — bipolar I disorder with psychotic features; not clinically stabilised in ongoing voluntary treatment; either unlikely to survive safely in the community without supervision with a substantially deteriorating condition, or in need of services to prevent a relapse likely to result in grave disability or serious harm; CARE must be the least restrictive alternative; and they must be likely to benefit.³

Read the exclusions, because this is where most families stop. The statute expressly excludes a psychotic disorder due to a medical condition or one not primarily psychiatric — naming traumatic brain injury, autism, dementia and neurologic conditions — as well as psychosis related to current intoxication, and it says a person whose only diagnosis is a substance use disorder does not qualify.³ Depression, anxiety and PTSD are not in the eligible class. The Judicial Council's own guidance adds that being unhoused or having poor hygiene is not by itself enough, and that being enrolled in treatment is not the same as being clinically stabilised.⁴

Who may file. A person the respondent lives with; a spouse, parent, sibling, adult child, grandparent or someone in loco parentis; a hospital director; the director of an agency that has treated them in the last 30 days; a treating behavioural health professional; a first responder with repeated interactions; the public guardian; the county behavioural health director; adult protective services; certain tribal health directors and tribal court judges; and the person themselves.⁵

The gate nobody warns families about. The petition is signed under penalty of perjury and must include either an affidavit from a licensed behavioural health professional — since 1 January 2026 this includes nurse practitioners and physician assistants — stating they examined the person within 60 days or made multiple unsuccessful attempts to, or evidence of at least two detentions for intensive treatment, the most recent within 60 days.⁶ A family member cannot file on their own account of what they have seen. Getting that affidavit is the real work of a CARE petition.

What happens then. The court reviews for a prima facie showing. If a family member filed, the court orders the county to investigate and report within 30 court days, extendable once by up to 30 days to keep trying voluntary engagement.⁷ Within five days of that report the court either dismisses — including because voluntary engagement is working — or sets an initial appearance within 14 court days and appoints counsel.⁷ Then: a merits hearing within 10 days on clear and convincing evidence, a case management hearing within 14 days, and either a CARE agreement with a 60-day progress hearing or a clinical evaluation within 21 days followed by a CARE plan developed within 14 days.⁸ The one-year clock starts when the plan is approved, not when you file.⁸

You get replaced, and you keep one thing. Once the process starts the court relieves the original petitioner and appoints the county behavioural health director in their place.⁹ A family petitioner keeps the right to be present and make a statement at the merits hearing, and — since July 2025 — ongoing notice of the proceedings, including continuances and dismissal, unless the court finds notice would be detrimental to the respondent.⁹ Hearings are otherwise closed; a family member has no independent right to attend, though the respondent may ask for you.¹⁰

What the court cannot do. It may order medically necessary stabilisation medication if it finds by clear and convincing evidence that the person lacks capacity to consent — and in the same sentence the statute says the medication "shall not be forcibly administered and the respondent's failure to comply with a medication order shall not result in a penalty, including… contempt or termination of the CARE plan."¹¹ It says again elsewhere that failure to comply carries no contempt, and that failure to comply with a medication order carries no penalty at all.¹² There is no detention or commitment power anywhere in the CARE Act. The respondent has counsel at every stage regardless of ability to pay, and may have a supporter present in meetings and hearings who cannot be subpoenaed to testify against them.¹³

What failure does mean. If the county timely provided everything the plan required and the person still did not complete it, that fact — and the reasons — is considered at a later hearing under the involuntary-treatment law, if that hearing happens within six months, and creates a presumption that the person needs more intervention than CARE provided.¹⁴ It is not a presumption of grave disability and not an automatic conservatorship. Maximum exposure to CARE is two years: one year, and one reappointment of up to one more.¹⁵

Route two: assisted outpatient treatment (Laura's Law)

Check whether your county has it. It is default-on with an opt-out, and roughly half the counties have opted out by board resolution — 31 counties were implementing as of the state's list in May 2026.¹⁶

You request; the county files. Only the county behavioural health director may petition, but a request may be made by someone the person lives with, a parent, spouse, sibling or adult child, certain directors and treating providers, a peace, parole or probation officer supervising them, or a judge.¹⁷ Note the list is narrower than CARE's — no grandparents, no first responders generally. On receiving a request the director must investigate; filing is then discretionary.¹⁷

The eligibility hinge is history, not diagnosis. Beyond the general criteria, the person must have a history of non-compliance shown by either mental illness being a substantial factor in hospitalisation or forensic mental health services at least twice in the last 36 months, or one or more acts of serious and violent behaviour, threats or attempts to cause serious physical harm to themselves or another within the last 48 months — in both cases excluding the period immediately preceding the petition.¹⁸ They must also have been offered a full treatment plan and still failed to engage.¹⁸

Orders run up to six months initially, renewable in 180-day periods, with the burden on the director at each review.¹⁹ Failure to comply "may not be grounds for involuntary civil commitment or a finding… of contempt."²⁰ But unlike CARE, there is a bridge: where a treating provider judges that the person has failed to comply after real efforts and may need involuntary admission, they may ask designated personnel to take the person for examination and hold them up to 72 hours — after which any continued retention runs through the ordinary hold statute.²⁰

Route three: LPS conservatorship

A family cannot petition for one. This is the single most common misunderstanding. A treating professional at an evaluating or treating facility — or the professional in charge of mental health treatment at a county jail — recommends conservatorship to the county officer who investigates them, and only if that officer concurs is a petition filed in superior court.²¹ Your role is to be a source: the investigator's report is required to contain information obtained from family, close friends, the social worker or the principal therapist.²² Before recommending, the officer must investigate all alternatives — the statute names assisted outpatient treatment and CARE — and may recommend conservatorship only if no suitable alternative is available.²²

The standard got broader. "Gravely disabled" now means a condition in which a person, as a result of a mental health disorder, a severe substance use disorder, or both together, is unable to provide for their basic personal needs for food, clothing, shelter, personal safety, or necessary medical care.²³ Before 2024 it reached only food, clothing and shelter, and only from a mental health disorder or chronic alcoholism. Counties could defer that change, but only until 1 January 2026, so it now applies statewide.²⁴

The sentence families should read twice. A person is not gravely disabled if they can survive safely without involuntary detention with help from responsible family, friends or others "who are both willing and able" — but "unless they specifically indicate in writing their willingness and ability to help, family, friends, or others shall not be considered willing or able."²⁵ That cuts both ways, deliberately. A family that steps forward in writing can defeat a petition. A family that cannot take this on is not required to announce it.

The shape of it. A temporary conservatorship lasts up to 30 days, extendable to no more than 180 if a trial is demanded.²⁶ A conservatorship terminates automatically after one year; to continue it the conservator must petition again, supported by the opinions of two physicians or licensed psychologists, and attest again that alternatives were considered.²⁷ The proposed conservatee may demand a court or jury trial within five days of the hearing, the trial must begin within 10 days, and failure to commence it in time is grounds for dismissal.²⁸ Powers are not automatic: the conservator may require the conservatee to accept treatment only if the court order says so, and placement must be the least restrictive alternative the court designates.²⁹

What to do, in order

1. Write the log. Dates, behaviour, hospitalisations, police contacts, attempts at voluntary treatment. Every route runs on it.
2. Call the county access line and ask specifically for a mobile crisis or field evaluation, and for the county's CARE Act contact. Ask whether your county implements assisted outpatient treatment.
3. If CARE looks possible, start on the affidavit — the treating professional's declaration, or the record of two intensive-treatment detentions. Without one of them there is no petition.
4. If they are in a hospital right now, that is when a conservatorship recommendation can actually be made — ask the treating professional directly whether they are considering one, and ask for the county's conservatorship investigator.
5. Decide, in advance and honestly, whether you can put "willing and able" in writing, because you may be asked.

If the situation is dangerous right now, that is not a court question. Call 988, or 911 if there is immediate danger, and say the words "mental health crisis" and ask for a crisis team. Ways to get help now →

Sources

1. Welfare & Institutions Code §5150(a) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
2. Welfare & Institutions Code §5970.5 — the first cohort by 1 October 2023 and the remaining counties by 1 December 2024; Judicial Council, 2 December 2024: "all 58 California counties are accepting petitions under the CARE Act, completing full statewide implementation" — courts.ca.gov.
3. Welfare & Institutions Code §5972, as amended by SB 27 (Stats. 2025, Ch. 528), effective 1 January 2026 — the six criteria, the diagnosis class including "bipolar I disorder with psychotic features, except psychosis related to current intoxication," and the exclusions for psychotic disorders due to a medical condition or not primarily psychiatric "including… traumatic brain injury, autism, dementia, or neurologic conditions," and for substance use disorder alone — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
4. Judicial Council of California, CARE-050-INFO (rev. 1 July 2026): "Enrollment in treatment alone is not enough to be considered clinically stabilized in ongoing voluntary treatment," and "Poor hygiene or being unhoused alone is not sufficient" — courts.ca.gov.
5. Welfare & Institutions Code §5974 — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. The Judicial Council's petition form also lists a registered domestic partner and a proposed conservator referred under §5350; the statutory list is what is quoted here.
6. Welfare & Institutions Code §5975(d), as amended by SB 27 (Stats. 2025, Ch. 528) — the affidavit alternative, including the express provision for a professional who "has made multiple attempts to examine, but has not been successful in eliciting the cooperation of the respondent." Note also §5975.1: a meritless or harassing repeat petition can support a vexatious-litigant finding.
7. Welfare & Institutions Code §5977(a)(3)(B), (a)(4) and (a)(5).
8. Welfare & Institutions Code §5977(b)(7)(A) (merits hearing within 10 days, clear and convincing evidence), §5977(c)(2) (case management hearing within 14 days), §5977.1(a)(2) (CARE agreement, 60-day progress hearing), §5977.1(b)–(c) (clinical evaluation, hearing within 21 days, plan developed within 14 days) and §5977.1(e) ("The issuance of an order approving a CARE plan… begins the CARE process timeline, which shall not exceed one year").
9. Welfare & Institutions Code §5977(b)(6)(A) and (b)(6)(B).
10. Welfare & Institutions Code §5976.5.
11. Welfare & Institutions Code §5977.1(d)(3).
12. Welfare & Institutions Code §5979(a)(4)–(5).
13. Welfare & Institutions Code §5976(c)–(d), §5977(a)(3)(A)(ii) and (a)(5)(C)(ii) (appointment of counsel), §5981(a) and (e) (the supporter's role and the bar on subpoenaing them).
14. Welfare & Institutions Code §5979(a)(3). Note also §5979(a)(2): to ensure safety the court may use the existing court-ordered evaluation article and must notify the county behavioural health agency and the Office of the Public Conservator and Guardian — which is a notification, not a conservatorship referral.
15. Welfare & Institutions Code §5977.3(a)(3)(B), (b) and (c) — including that an involuntary reappointment requires a finding that "all services and supports required through the CARE process were provided to the respondent."
16. Welfare & Institutions Code §5349 — a county "may opt out… by a resolution passed by the governing body"; California Department of Health Care Services, assisted outpatient treatment page, listing 31 implementing counties as of its May 2026 update — dhcs.ca.gov. Check the current list before relying on it.
17. Welfare & Institutions Code §5346(b)(1)–(3).
18. Welfare & Institutions Code §5346(a)(1)–(7), as amended by AB 2119 (Stats. 2024, Ch. 948), effective 1 January 2025.
19. Welfare & Institutions Code §5346(d)(5)(B), (g) and (h)(1) — "The burden of proof shall be on the director."
20. Welfare & Institutions Code §5346(f) and (d)(6) — the 72-hour examination mechanism, available "only after the treatment team has attempted to gain the person's cooperation with treatment ordered by the court, and has been unable to do so."
21. Welfare & Institutions Code §5352 — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
22. Welfare & Institutions Code §5354(a), as amended by SB 43 (Stats. 2023, Ch. 637) — the investigation of "all available alternatives to conservatorship, including… assisted outpatient treatment pursuant to Section 5346 and the Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Act program," and the requirement to recommend conservatorship "only if no suitable alternatives are available."
23. Welfare & Institutions Code §5008(h)(1)(A), with "severe substance use disorder," "personal safety" and "necessary medical care" defined at §5008(o), (p) and (q) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.
24. Welfare & Institutions Code §5008(h)(4) — deferral by county resolution "until January 1, 2026"; DHCS Behavioral Health Information Notice 24-011.
25. Welfare & Institutions Code §5350(e)(1)–(2).
26. Welfare & Institutions Code §5352.1, as amended by SB 42 (Stats. 2024, Ch. 640) — 30 days, extendable to no more than 180 days where a court or jury trial is demanded; §5352.1(b) requires an attestation that alternatives including assisted outpatient treatment and CARE were considered.
27. Welfare & Institutions Code §5361 — automatic termination after one year, reappointment supported by the opinions of two physicians or licensed psychologists, a care coordination plan, and the statement that "all care and treatment after release shall be voluntary."
28. Welfare & Institutions Code §5350(d) — demand within five days, trial to commence within 10 days, and "failure to commence the trial within that period of time is grounds for dismissal of the conservatorship proceedings."
29. Welfare & Institutions Code §5358 and §5358(b) — treatment may be required only "if specified in the court order"; §5350(b)(1) on who may be appointed.

Every section above was read on the statutory text on 17 August 2026. This is a description of the law, not legal advice, and outcomes in these proceedings turn entirely on facts and on your county.