Letter to Gov, HHR, DBHDS, etc.
Dear Fellow Advocate,
Recently and suddenly, the Virginia Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services (DBHDS) announced a reorganization that includes disbanding its Office of Recovery Services (ORS), effective tomorrow, July 1, 2025.
To many of us, it feels like less of a reorganization and more like an elimination or at least a significant dilution of ORS’s positive impact on recovery, and it feels ill-advised and precipitous.
At the very least, more planning, more thought, and consultation with the recovery community at the table is essential to ensure continued progress for the recovery community. Such consultation has not happened, and DBHDS has not responded to calls for reconsideration or even a postponement to discuss the ramifications of its plan. All it has done is appear at events and repeat fact-less consultant-prepared talking points.*
ORS has played the most significant role in advancing the cause of recovery in Virginia. It has been instrumental in building a solid foundation for peer recovery services, certification, and training. It has a newly-mandated growing role in the certification and oversight of recovery residences. It is the culmination of a powerful, unified recovery movement you have been a part of. It represents our collective understanding that recovery is not just possible, but essential for a thriving, effective and efficient Virginia.
DBHDS intends to "distribute ORSs resources" across other DBHDS offices. Senior Department officials have stated the changes are nothing more than a bureaucratic reshuffle. However, there is no way it won't be a dilution of the impact ORS has had. If ORS had a staff of 15 or 20 people, maybe, but it is less than half that.
This feels like an assault on years of advocacy and a profound disservice to every Virginian, especially those of us (and our allies) in sustained recovery from a variety of mental health, substance use, and neurodivergent challenges who have dedicated our lives to improving the care people we love receive.
ORS was successful in large part because, although its staff was small, it represented a concentrated and focused force for recovery. To break up ORS will dilute its impact and throw away years of hard learned, internationally recognized best practices that ORS was instrumental in implementing in Virginia. It is a dangerous step backward for the Commonwealth.
We implore you to send these letters immediately to decision-makers and their influencers and demand that DBHDS put an immediate hold on this potentially calamitous decision pending further study THAT INVOLVES THE PEOPLE IT AFFECTS!
The time for action is now. Let our voices be heard. You have the power to help protect the future of recovery in Virginia.
Please sign thE letter and forward it all your friends and family who support Wellness and Recover in Virginia.
Thank you!
Your Virginia Recovery Advocacy Project State Organizing Team
