Last week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced $5 million in grants for fellowship programs in forensic psychiatry.
The funding was approved by state lawmakers in the 2025 legislative session.
The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Centers of Lubbock and of El Paso are among the nine schools that received funding for the program.
Prior to the new programs, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board – which was charged with administering the grant – reported there was only one accredited forensic psychiatry fellowship in the state.
Dr. Sarah Mallard Wakefield is a professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at TTUHSC School of Medicine.
She said the goal of the fellowship program is to train more mental health professionals with the experience to work with those involved in legal proceedings.
“There are many people who are awaiting beds for competency to stand trial and those types of things in the state hospital system, and there aren't enough programs often to meet that need, and so people are waiting in jail for quite long times to get that restoration or to get those evaluations,” Wakefield explained.
At the beginning of 2024, the average wait time for competency restoration in Texas was 320 days, according to the State Auditor’s Office. And by June 2024, there were more than 2,000 individuals on the waitlist for services.
Texas Legislators expanded available beds at state hospitals for those requiring competency restoration in the 2023 legislative session. And in 2025, they set reporting requirements and outlined responsibilities for contracted facilities that offer competency restoration.
Along with addressing staffing shortages and working to decrease the backlog of those awaiting treatment, Wakefield said forensic psychiatry is about learning to make impactful investments in communities.
“Forensic psychiatry is really about understanding the systems and the policies in place and how to improve the system and how to intervene earlier, so that in the future we could have fewer people awaiting these needs,” she said.
Each of the nine schools selected will receive more than half a million dollars for program development, expansion, and salary support for the training physicians.