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Cal. WIC § 5500

This is the official text of Cal. WIC § 5500, part of California’s Welfare and Institutions Code — governs public social services, juvenile justice, and mental health/developmental disability services.

Not legal advice. This page reproduces the official text of a government statute for reference only. Laws change, and how a statute applies depends on your specific facts. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed attorney in your state.

Official statutory text

As used in this chapter:

(a) “Advocacy” means those activities undertaken on behalf of persons who are receiving or have received mental health services to protect their rights or to secure or upgrade treatment or other services to which they are entitled.

(b) “Mental health client” or “client” means a person who is receiving or has received services from a mental health facility, service, or program and who has personally or through a guardian ad litem, entered into an agreement with a county patients’ rights advocate for the provision of advocacy services.

(c) “Mental health facilities, services, or programs” means a publicly operated or supported mental health facility or program; a private facility or program licensed or operated for health purposes providing services to persons with mental health disorders; and publicly supported agencies providing other than mental health services to clients with mental health disorders.

(d) “Independent of providers of service” means that the advocate has no direct or indirect clinical or administrative responsibility for any recipient of mental health services in any mental health facility, program, or service for which he or she performs advocacy activities.

(e) “County patients’ rights advocate” means an advocate appointed, or whose services are contracted for, by a local mental health director.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.