Office of Forensic Coordination | Texas Health and Human Services

The Office of Forensic Coordination (OFC) works to improve forensic service coordination and prevent and reduce justice-involvement for people with mental illness (MI), substance use disorders (SUD), and intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Through statewide and cross-agency initiatives, OFC improves coordination and collaboration among state and local leaders.

Joint Committee on Access and Forensic Services

The Office of Forensic Coordination liaisons with Joint Committee on Access & Forensic Services leadership and provides subject matter expertise to the full committee, as well as to the Access and Data Subcommittees.

Technical Assistance

Visit txbhjustice.org for more information on Office of Forensic Coordination initiatives and to request technical assistance.

Sequential Intercept Model Mapping

HHSC offers strategic planning support to communities across the state through Sequential Intercept Mapping (SIM) [PDF] Workshops. The SIM details how people with MI, SUD, and IDD encounter and move through the criminal justice system. The SIM mapping process brings together community leaders, agencies, and systems to identify strategies for diverting people with MI, SUD, and IDD away from the justice system into treatment, and improves forensic services and the competence process.

Eliminate the Wait Statewide Campaign

The competency to stand trial process is designed to protect the rights of people who do not understand the charges against them and are unable to assist in their own defense. Texas faces a growing number of people waiting in county jails for inpatient competency restoration services after being declared incompetent to stand trial (IST). Not only does this take a significant toll on people waiting in jail for inpatient competency restoration services, but it has also increased costs and overburdened state agencies and county jails.

Eliminate the Wait is a statewide campaign initiated in 2022 to increase competency restoration services for Texans by taking a comprehensive and integrated approach to this challenge. HHSC, in partnership with the Judicial Commission on Mental Health, is partnering with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, sheriffs and jail staff, police, and behavioral health providers across the state to change how Texas serves people at the intersection of mental health and criminal justice.

Campaign resources:

Eliminate the Wait Toolkit: This toolkit provides a set of strategies that stakeholders can implement to help Eliminate the Wait (PDF) for inpatient competency restoration services in Texas.
Regional Forum: In December 2022, more than 180 behavioral health and justice stakeholders convened in central Texas for the first regional Eliminate the Wait forum to focus attention on reducing, and ultimately, eliminating the wait for inpatient competency restoration services.