DELAWARE — Full-time mental health services are returning to the Delaware County Jail after county commissioners approved a new agreement with the jail’s medical provider.
The one-year, nearly $125,000 contract addendum with Prime Care will place a full-time mental health professional inside the jail to provide screenings, diagnostics, counseling, case management and re-entry planning for incarcerated individuals.
The move comes after the jail’s previous provider, Maryhaven, could no longer provide a full-time staff member following a resignation, according to county officials.
“We previously used Maryhaven for mental health services at the jail, and they are closing their local office, so we had to come up with some solution for providing mental health services at the jail,” Chief Deputy Tom Morgan said.
“It was a bit of a difficult time for us the last six months of 2025 because we lost our full-time person in Maryhaven,” he said.
As a result, the jail only had a part-time staff member who came in three days a week, and DCSO utilized Telehealth to supplement the rest of the time.
Ultimately, Maryhaven did not find someone to fill the full-time role before ceasing its Delaware and Morrow operations on May 15, and the jail needed someone to provide the essential services.
“They had pulled the part-time person out of the jail I think May 13, so we didn’t have anything. We had to do something to be able to help with these mental health needs in the jail,” he said.
Contract with Delaware-Morrow Mental Health and Recovery Services Board
The Delaware-Morrow Mental Health and Recovery Services Board funded the MaryHaven position in the jail through a long-standing contract with the Sheriff’s Office.
The contract is still standing despite Maryhaven no longer providing services, and does not expire until June 30, so the two entities are working together to adapt the contract.
Morgan said Southeast Healthcare will replace Maryhaven in the contract. Southeast Healthcare has previously provided crisis on-call response services, helping in jail during after hours.
If the two renew the contract, that means the jail will see two sources of mental health services.
“The goal would be to not just provide enough resources in programming and assessments that really help these people through their mental health crisis and through their addiction crisis, but that they never have to come back to jail,” Morgan said.
Morgan emphasized the importance of these services in the jail because in 2025, 62% of inmates were prescribed a behavioral health medication as a result of their diagnosis.
“I think that 2,263 mental health client contacts is a very telling number in terms of in just one year’s time, there was that many that went on in just one one county jail,” Morgan said.
Those client contacts could be with the same person multiple times, Morgan said, but the jail saw a total of 2,409 people booked in the jail that year.
“If folks come in to a correctional facility and they don’t get any kind of treatment or support or tools to address mental health issues, and addiction issues then they go right back out and they’re in the same place in life,” Morgan said.
“So we’re trying to be proactive in terms of dealing with that incarcerated population and trying to help them deal with their mental health issues and their addiction issues.”
