Please use the following link: https://www.help.senate.gov/hearings/nominations-of-dawn-oconnell-to-be-assistant-secretary-for-preparedness-and-response-and-miriam-delphin-rittmon-to-be-assistant-secretary-for-mental-health-and-substance-use
NYAPRS Note: We’d like to encourage our broader state and national community to watch today’s Senate HELP Committee hearing on the nomination of Dr. Miriam Delphin-Rittmon to be Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use. The hearing begins at 10:00 am and will also include consideration of Dawn O’Connell to be Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response so it’s difficult to predict when Dr. Delphin will begin her comments.
NYAPRS joined with the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law to develop and submit the following letter of support on behalf of national and state rehabilitation, disability rights and peer organizations listed below.
You can watch the hearing at:
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June 1, 2021
Honorable Patty Murray
Chair, Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Honorable Richard Burr, Ranking Member
Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Dear Chair Murray and Ranking Member Burr:
The undersigned disability rights, mental health, and peer advocacy organizations write to express our support for confirmation of Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, President Biden’s nominee for Assistant Secretary of Mental Health and Substance Use. Together, our organizations represent millions of individuals with disabilities, including Americans living with mental health and substance use disabilities.
Dr. Delphin-Rittmon is an excellent choice for Assistant Secretary. She has a wide range of experience qualifying her to serve in this leadership role, including experience running a state mental health and substance use recovery service system; serving as a senior advisor to the Administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA); conducting and evaluating research on a broad array of topics with a particular focus on culturally competent mental health services, racial, ethnic and cultural disparities, and peer support; and serving as Associate Professor with the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry.
Over the past 20 years, Dr. Delphin-Rittmon has been a staunch advocate for recovery-oriented, community-based services. She oversaw the renewal of Connecticut’s Medicaid home and community-based services waiver for individuals with psychiatric disabilities—one of only a small handful of HCBS waivers in the country focusing on individuals with psychiatric disabilities.
Under Dr. Delphin-Rittmon, Connecticut’s community-based waiver has expanded access to a range of community services including peer support, supported employment, recovery assistance supports and other services that have helped countless individuals with psychiatric disabilities succeed in their communities of choice and avoid institutionalization.
Of paramount importance to disability rights and mental health advocacy organizations, she has been a strong advocate for improved engagement strategies and person-centered, recovery-oriented services rather than coercive practices.
Dr. Delphin-Rittmon guided Connecticut’s mental health and substance use service system through the pandemic, overseeing a rapid transformation in operations and shift to telehealth services.
She has led innovative responses to the opioid crisis, including the deployment of peer recovery coaches in emergency departments and mobile vans with harm reduction supplies and wellness resources. The peer recovery coaches work in 25 emergency departments across Connecticut; they have lived experience with substance use challenges and engage with individuals with possible substance use diagnoses to offer assistance and referrals for services.
Now is the time to have a champion of equity in mental health and substance use policies and services. Dr. Delphin-Rittmon has devoted much of her career to addressing racial, ethnic and cultural disparities in mental health and substance use recovery services and advancing health equity and culturally appropriate services.
She has served as the Director of Cultural Competence and Health Disparities Research and Consultation at Yale’s Program for Recovery and Community Health, served as Director of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services’ (DMHAS) Office of Multicultural Affairs and worked as a consultant on that office’s Health Disparities Initiative.
Dr. Delphin-Rittmon has also served on DMHAS’s Multicultural Advisory Council, held leadership positions in the National Leadership Council on African American Behavioral Health, and served as a faculty member, a mentor, and a member of the training advisory committee for the American Psychological Association’s Minority Fellowship Program. She has been involved with numerous research studies concerning cultural competence and the impact of racial bias and stereotyping on clinical judgment.
We urge that Dr. Delphin-Rittmon’s nomination be moved forward and that she be swiftly confirmed. We stand ready to work with her to advance the health, recovery, rights and full inclusion of Americans with disabilities.
Sincerely,
American Association of People with Disabilities
Arizona Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioners
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
California Association of Social Rehabilitation Agencies
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The Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy, and Innovation
Honorable Tony Coelho
College for Behavioral Health Leadership
Connecticut Legal Rights Project
Connecticut Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
Faces and Voices of Recovery
Florida Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association
Georgia Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association
Gould Farm
Human Services Research Institute
Keep the Promise Coalition (CT)
Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute
Mental Health Connecticut
National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities Directors
National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy
National Association for Rural Mental Health
National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery
National Council on Independent Living
New Jersey Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association
New York Association for Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services
Pennsylvania Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services
Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association
Psychosocial Rehabilitation Association of New Mexico
RespectAbility
Technical Assistance Collaborative
Tennessee Mental Health Consumers’ Association
Virginia Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association