California CARE Court: What Providers Need to Know

Dr. Veronica Kelley, DSW, LCSW (she/hers) is the Chief of Mental Health and Recovery Services for The County of Orange. She is also known as Behavioral Health Director at the Orange County Health Care Agency, where she oversees the public behavioral system. With over 22 years of experience as a licensed social worker in California, Dr. Kelley holds a Doctorate and a Master's degree in Social Work. She also serves as the Alcohol & Drug Administrator for the County, allowing Orange County to receive Federal funds to address substance use disorder.

Prior to her current position, Dr. Kelley spent 13 years serving with the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health, where she was appointed the Behavioral Health Director for six years. During this time, she led the county's crisis response and recovery efforts to the 2015 Terrorist Attack. Dr. Kelley remains active at the state level, addressing behavioral health issues as a Board Member of NAMI California and the Past President of the County Behavioral Health Directors Association. She also co-chairs the Substance Abuse, Prevention & Treatment Committee and holds numerous positions on statewide committees, including an appointment to the Governor's, No Place Like Home Advisory Board.

In addition to her leadership roles, Dr. Kelley is an Assistant Clinical Professor at the Loma Linda School of Social Work & Social Ecology and a Professor at Mount Saint Mary’s University in the Social Work and Sociology programs.

Harold Turner (he/his)  is a retired Information Technology professional with more than 35 years of experience working with Fortune 500 organizations. He has provided technical management and direction in support of major infrastructure projects in diverse industries such as financial services, information technologies and health care. He has been a contributing member of NAMI since 2007 and is currently the Executive Director of NAMI Urban Los Angeles. He also serves on the NAMI California Board of Directors. He has been appointed as a commissioner on the Los Angeles County Mental Health Commission.

Honorable James Bianco (he/his) is assigned to a full-time mental health courtroom in the Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles, handling felony cases in which people receive community mental health treatment.  He was previously assigned from 2013-2023 to the Mental Health Courthouse, where he heard cases involving criminal competency and a wide variety of civil mental health treatment cases, including conservatorships and petitions for release from involuntary hospital treatment.

Judge Bianco has been active in mental-health related issues on a national level.  He was a member of the National Center for State Court’s Judicial Task Force to Examine the State Courts' Response to Mental Illness, and has been appointed by the California Chief Justice to numerous Advisory Committees of the California Judicial Council, the Work Group on Homelessness, and the California Supreme Court Advisory Committee on the Code of Judicial Ethics.  Judge Bianco was the founding Chair of the Mental Health Committee of the California Judges Association.

Judge Bianco frequently teaches mental health-related courses to judges, both locally and around California.  He has been faculty since 2007 in California’s New Judges Orientation, taught criminal procedure at USC Gould School of Law, and taught a criminal externship seminar at UCLA School of Law.



Judge Bianco first took the bench as a Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner in 2005, and became a judge in 2008.  He graduated from the USC Gould School of Law in 1987, after receiving his undergraduate degree from Stony Brook University in 1984.

Christopher Schneiders (he/his) is the former Director of the Saks Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy, and Ethics at USC Gould School of Law (2010-23). As director, he led the institute’s first-of-its-kind collaborative research study on Supported Decision-Making (SDM) for people with serious psychiatric disabilities. He also helped launch CA MHSOAC’s Psychiatric Advance Directives (PADs) innovation planning project. Schnieders is currently a consultant focused on behavioral health policy innovation, strategy and implementation.