DAYTON, Ohio — According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 44% of people in jail experience some type of mental illness.

A new, unique partnership between medical school residents and one Ohio jail is bridging the gap in mental health services.

What You Need To Know

  • Montgomery County Sheriff's Office works with Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine residents

  • Partnership open to fourth-year psychiatry residents

  • Residents will work in six-month rotations

Peter Stacy is a fourth-year resident at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine.

For the next six months, he’s going to be spending a lot of time at the Montgomery County Jail.

“I’m feeling great. Excited to work with Dr. Merrill and the jail population,” Stacy said.

 Training director Dr. Brian Merrill is helping to increase psychiatry services.

“The people who we see in the jail are the same people we see in the community. Some of these individuals we spend time on in-patient units or we see in clinical settings,” said Merrill.

“You know they care about the community, they care about the people that are living in here. So for us, it’s just a great advantage,” said Montgomery County Sheriff Rob Streck.

The partnership is open to fourth year psychiatry students.

For Stacy, it’s a path that makes sense.

“I like working with this population. There was a period in my life where I was a police officer for a couple of years. So I think that kind of started my interest working with this and when I transitioned over to medicine and psychiatry, it seemed like a natural fit for me to bring my new skills over here,” he said.

Like his fellow psychiatry residents, Stacy’s training is fresh, and he’s been exposed to the newest practices and training.

“You’re getting individuals inside here that have all kinds of problems, from abuse when they were younger, sexual abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse,” said Streck.

“A huge part of what we do is medication management of chronic psychiatric illness like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder. Just the bread and butter of psychiatry of those,” added Merrill.

Stacy will be able to put classroom work into a much different setting.  

“It’s an interesting training opportunity for me to learn how to deal with this population and possibly work here in my future career as well,” he said.

Merrill said this program could open a lot of doors for future services.

Later down the line, it could include different residency years or extend to different lengths of time.

He said another possibility could be to work with jail staff and the jail population.