New York Codes, Rules and Regulations › Title 14 - DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HYGIENE › Chapter IV - Regulation And Quality Control › Subchapter D - Operation Of Facilities › Part 85 - Operation Of Outpatient Facilities For The Mentally Disabled › Section 85.1 - Background and intent

Current through Register Vol. 46, No. 28, July 10, 2024
(a) This Part is
				  intended to promote the application of the most effective methods by which the
				  mentally ill, mentally retarded and alcoholics may be helped to achieve maximum
				  self-sufficiency while providing for their safety and general well-being to the
				  extent that it does not prevent them from the practice of social skills in the
				  natural round of life.
(b) The
				  purpose of therapeutic programs for the mentally ill or the mentally retarded
				  is to improve the social competence of those they serve. Outpatient or
				  ambulatory programs contribute to the accomplishment of this purpose by
				  fostering the practice of social skills in the natural round of life. There
				  are, however, differences between mental illness and mental retardation which
				  require varying emphases in programs. An essential program component for the
				  mentally ill is psychiatric treatment; for the mentally retarded primary
				  modalities are therapeutic education and training. It is, however, a common
				  purpose addressed to social competence which has led to most development of
				  short-term problem-oriented treatment approaches, group methods, and services
				  to family members together, regardless of the mental condition.
(c) The Mental Hygiene Law requires the
				  certification of any nonresidential or outpatient facility operated by a
				  corporation or a public agency to provide examination, diagnosis, care,
				  treatment, rehabilitation or training to people with a disturbance in behavior,
				  feeling, thinking or judgment so severe as to require care and treatment to
				  people with subaverage intellectual functioning which originates during the
				  developmental period and is associated with impairment in adaptive behavior, or
				  to people who habitually use alcoholic beverages to the extent that this is
				  beyond their control or endangers health, safety or welfare. A number of terms
				  are in common usage to refer to such facilities, among them being psychiatric
				  clinic, mental health clinic, child guidance clinic, day hospital, day training
				  center and alcoholism clinic. In an effort to make more comfortable their
				  utilization by the mentally handicapped, some outpatient facilities have made
				  use of less distinctive titles.
(1) While
				  many forms of organized community supportive services available to the general
				  public are of great value to those with mental handicaps as well, and are made
				  available to them as needful members of the general public, this Part is not
				  intended to apply to such services in the absence of a primary purpose to
				  provide services to the mentally disabled as defined in the Mental Hygiene
				  Law.
(2) Specialized methods of
				  training the mentally ill and mentally retarded in life skills on an outpatient
				  basis having become an established service for the mentally disabled, this Part
				  is intended to apply to nonresidential facilities which provide day training
				  programs or day treatment programs for the mentally disabled.