Senator Brouk Announces Major Advancement of Daniel’s Law Provisions

Statement from Senator Samra Brouk (SD-55) on historic investments for Daniel’s Law in the FY ‘26 New York State Budget:

“Today we took a major step forward with our plan to pass Daniel's Law and transform our statewide crisis response system to better serve New Yorkers with community-based, peer-led public-health response teams.

In this budget, we secured New York State's first multi-million dollar investment to create and fund non-police, peer-led crisis response teams to support individuals in a mental health or substance use crisis. 

This budget also creates the Behavioral Health Crisis Technical Assistance Center to ensure localities have support in developing their own mental health crisis response systems.”

Senator Brouk and her colleagues in the Senate stood firm in their commitment to secure funding for peer-led crisis response systems to transform mental health care in New York State.  

With the goal of delivering compassionate, culturally competent care for New Yorkers, investments in Daniel’s Law (S3670) in FY’26 budget include $2 million in funding for the creation of a Behavioral Health Crisis Technical Assistance Center to help localities develop a community-based, peer-led, non-police response to mental health crises–a direct recommendation of the Daniel’s Law Task Force Report (2024). 

The budget also allocates an additional $6 million in funding to establish and fund pilot programs across the state that use peer-led crisis response teams to support individuals during mental health and substance use crises. Investing in Daniel’s Law will improve and transform the mental health crisis response system in New York State to keep communities safe.