The Division of Children, Adolescents and Family Services has been added to the Department of Health and Human Services organizational chart under the Bureau of Prevention, Intervention, Treatment and Recovery. Previous versions of the Unification Plan and the accompanying organizational chart did not include a designated division to represent children’s mental health.

The absence of children’s mental health on the overall plan and chart was brought to the attention of the Children’s Steering Committee and the larger RCPA children’s provider members. Numerous comments in support of a children’s division were shared with RCPA leadership.

Richard Edley, RCPA President & CEO, Robena Spangler, RCPA Director of Children’s Division, and Rhea Fernandes from Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health met with the Governor’s team to discuss recommendations to address the concerns. RCPA presented a number of options that were taken into consideration by the team.

We are proud to report that as of June 8, the recommendations were fully implemented and the organizational chart has now been updated to reflect the change. We believe this demonstrates that our voices are being heard and that the Governor’s office does value constructive feedback and input into the successful implementation of the unification plan.

Thank you to the Governor’s staff for their interest and response to this very important issue.