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• Access to Mental Hygiene Records
  This will offer guidance for individuals receiving services, their families and other “qualified persons” interested in accessing records, in a question and answer format, together with references to the applicable provisions of the Mental Hygiene Law.
• Advanced Directive (PDF)
  Information and guidance on preparing a directive in the event of future mental health treatment and your preferences.
  • In the Driver’s Seat A Guide to Self-Directed Mental Health Care (PDF)
  • National Resource Center on Psychiatric Advance Directives
  • Planning For Your Mental and Physical Health Care and Treatment (PDF)
    An Advance Directive is a type of written or verbal instruction about health care to be followed if a person becomes unable to make decisions regarding his or her medical treatment.
  • Power In Planning: Self-Determination Through Psychiatric Advance Directives (PDF)
• Contact Information for MHLS
• Criminal History Background Check (PDF)
  If you have applied for employment or to volunteer with a mental health provider, in a position that will involve regular and substantial unsupervised or unrestricted physical contact with the provider’s clients, a criminal history background check is required. This legal requirement applies to many human service agencies.
• Mental Hygiene Legal Services
  MHLS is responsible for protecting and advocating for the rights of people who reside in facilities licensed to provide services for mental illness, developmental disabilities or chemical dependence, and to advocate for individuals wherever they may reside or placed in involuntary outpatient treatment. MHLS operates out of field offices located throughout the Fourth Department.
• Professional Misconduct
  To ensure public protection in New York State, the New York State Education Department’s Office of the Professions (OP) investigates and prosecutes professional misconduct in all professions except medicine. Professional misconduct is the failure of a licensed professional to meet expected standards of practice.
• US Department of Health and Human Services–Office for Civil Rights
  OCR helps to protect you from discrimination in certain healthcare and social service programs.