PORT ANGELES — The public is invited to hear about new directions in the treatment of mental illness at a free program at 7 p.m. Thursday.
The program will be in Linkletter Hall at Olympic Medical Center, 939 Caroline St.
Refreshments will be served. At 6:30 p.m., NAMI of Clallam County, which is sponsoring the program, will conduct a business meeting.
Dr. Joshua Jones, the medical director of Peninsula Behavioral Health, will speak about mental illness diagnosis strategies and treatments on the horizon that offer hope to patients and their families, said Margi Ahlgren, treasurer for NAMI of Clallam County, the county affiliate for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
“We represent more than 60 families in Clallam County,” Ahlgren said.
“One of our missions is public outreach, educating the public about mental illness, and this is one of our programs to do that,” she said.
Everyone is welcome at the presentation, she said.
Jones’s duties at Peninsula Behavioral Health include supervising psychiatric treatment services, performing forensic psychiatric evaluations and coordinating services with the hospital district to provide bedside psychiatric consultations.
A graduate of the University of Puget Sound and the University of Washington School of Medicine, Jones is board-certified as a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in general and forensic psychiatry.
In 2008, he served as attending psychiatrist to the Army’s 1835th Medical Detachment in Camp Taji, Iraq.
Previously, he was medical director of the Alexander Assessment and Treatment Group in Rochester, N.Y.
He is a clinical instructor in the University of Washington Family Medicine Department and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.
He joined Peninsula Behavioral Health, based in Port Angeles, in 2010.
