On December 27, 2007, Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, Barbara A. Leadholm published on the Department's website the Final Report of the Commissioner’s Task Force on Safety and Risk Management. This document took three years to produce and raises many issues which are of concern to advocates and mental health consumers,.

This is particularity interesting in light of the fact that Massachusetts was a recipient of a three-year grant awarded by the National Association of State Mental health Program Directors (NASMHPD) to eliminate the use of restraint and seclusion at Massachusetts state psychiatric facilities, which occurred during the same three-year period that the Department was developing this document, which struck some as incongruent.

What follows are comments provided by the Disability Law Center to Commissioner Leadholm documenting our concerns with the report.

In addition are talking points provided to individual consumers and consumer organizations to facilitate their submitting comments of their own.