Baker Act and Treatment
If your significant other has mental health problems, it’s important to seek treatment. Even children can and do face mental health trials and tribulations. However, the Baker Act is not the way to get treatment for adults or children. The Baker Act was designed only for emergencies. When the Baker Act is used, the State has authorization to come into your home, handcuff your significant other (even children of any age), put him/her in the back of a police car, and take him/her to a Baker Act facility, where they will get only emergency stabilization. That facility (usually a for-profit business), not you, will decide when the need for inpatient psychiatric hospitalization is no longer needed. (S)he will be at the “kindheartedness” of Florida’s mental health system and the goal of getting treatment will not be met.
