As directors of Ohio’s ten certified forensic centers, OFCC is dedicated to recruiting and maintaining a pool of highly trained expert evaluators and forensic practitioners for Ohio’s criminal justice and mental health professions.
Prior to the creation of regional forensic centers, Ohio’s system for assessment and restoration to competence required months-long psychiatric hospitalizations for those who were criminally involved and potentially severely mentally ill.
Now, the regional forensic centers are key resources for minimizing the length of stay at the state’s psychiatric hospitals and expediting the resolution of criminal court cases involving people with mental illness, intellectual disabilities, and co-occurring diagnostic issues. We give expert, objective, evidence-based opinions on difficult issues and promote evidence-based and effective interventions for those who need them.
Our Mission Statement
There are three basic administrative systems: the court clinic, operated by the court itself; the independent, private, non-profit agency that contracts with a mental health board to provide such services; and the forensic center which functions as a program division of a larger community mental health agency.
Depending on the structure of the forensic center and the availability of time and resources, in addition to the evaluations performed for the Common Pleas courts, forensic centers provide assessments to other court systems (municipal, juvenile, domestic relations, adult parole authority, probate and federal) on a contractual basis.
Several forensic centers provide treatment services to court-involved individuals, participate in research projects, and monitor of clients found NGRI who have been released from the hospital to community treatment. Several forensic centers also provide supervised internship and training to students from local institutions of higher learning; and deliver educational programs that focus on forensic mental health issues to the courts and mental health community within their local areas.
OFCC Leaders
The OFCC is a consortium that consists of all ten of the Regional Ohio Community Forensic Centers, located all over Ohio, which are designed to serve primarily the Ohio Courts of Common Pleas (the criminal division of adult court). Divided among Ohio’s 88 counties, the ten centers receive funding from the Ohio Mental Health and Addiction Services Office of Criminal Justice and Forensic Services and work with their local Mental Health and Recovery Boards to support all of the court systems and their affiliates within their designated regions.
Our History
Prior to the creation of the Forensic Center model, the state of Ohio was sending every defendant, whose competence or mental state was questioned, to a state psychiatric hospital to await a mental health evaluation. This was creating a backlog in the courts and was very expensive to maintain. So, the idea of creating outpatient centers throughout the state became the reality, saving the state of Ohio and the local courts significant time and money. The creation of the forensic centers was codified in the Ohio Revised Code (5122-32-01) and the standards for each type of service were also mandated by state law (for example: Competency to Stand Trial).
The creation of these centers led to the creation of the Association of Ohio Forensic Evaluation Centers, an unincorporated association, which led to the inception of the Ohio Forensic Centers Consortium (OFCC) in 2022. The OFCC provides annual training for forensic mental health professionals, quality assurance standards of the centers, expertise with regard to questions from the courts and legislators regarding professional practices, and establishment of evidence-based standards for the practice of forensic evaluations. The OFCC also advocates for the Ohio Community Forensic Centers and provides a forum for the Directors of the Forensic Centers to discuss topics related to service provision, the forensic system, and mutual goals or concerns.
Who are the professionals?
The Legal Examiners are licensed professionals: psychiatrists (MD) and psychologists (Ph.D./Psy.D) who are experts in conducting mental health evaluations for court-related questions.
These include Mental State at the Time of the Charged Offense, also known as Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI); Competency to Stand Trial, Post NGRI-related evaluations, and Proposed Increased Movement evaluations.
All legal examiners must be licensed in the state of Ohio in either psychiatry or psychology and complete continuing education focused on forensic issues. They are held to professional quality standards by the Ohio Forensic Centers Consortium, monitored by each center’s director. Post-conviction evaluations can be conducted by Legal Examiners, although they can also be conducted by independently licensed social workers and counselors (MSW or M.Ed.) with specialized training in forensic assessment.
Forensic Monitors and Forensic Hospitals
Each county has an identified state psychiatric hospital in its region where defendants who are found incompetent to stand trial or NGRI will be treated. These regional psychiatric hospitals also employ psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals trained in forensic mental health services.