Virginia’s public behavioral health and developmental services system provides services to individuals with mental illness, developmental disabilities, or substance use disorders through state-operated state hospitals and centers, and 39 community services boards and one behavioral health authority (CSBs).

CSBs are the single points of entry into public behavioral health and developmental services, including access to state facilities through preadmission screening, case management, and discharge planning for individuals leaving state facilities. While not part of the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS), locally-operated CSBs are established in cities or counties pursuant to the Code of Virginia. DBHDS negotiates a performance contract with each CSB for the delivery of services, and provides state funds, monitors, licenses, regulates, and provides direction to the CSBs. DBHDS also licenses 1,830 private providers of behavioral health and developmental services in 10,904 locations throughout Virginia.

DBHDS operates 12 state hospitals and centers. State hospitals provide highly structured and intensive inpatient services, including psychiatric, nursing, psychological, psychosocial rehabilitation, support, and specialized programs for older adults, children and adolescents, and individuals with a forensic status. A state training center provides highly structured habilitation and residential care for individuals with intellectual disability, and a medical center provider medical services for patients in state hospitals or other centers. DBHDS also provides rehabilitation services for persons court-determined to be sexually violent predators.

The DBHDS central office provides leadership to promote partnerships among CSBs and state hospitals and centers with other agencies and providers. The central office supports the provision of accessible and effective services by CSBs and other providers, directs the delivery of services in state hospitals and centers, protects the human rights of individuals receiving services, and assures that public and private providers adhere to licensing regulations. The DBHDS mission and vision statements are found in the image to the right:

Governor Youngkin’s transformational Right Help, Right Now plan offers a road map to ensure every Virginian experiencing crisis, behavioral health disorders or developmental disabilities the help they need, right when they need it. The plan is carefully crafted and comprehensive, making historic investments in crisis services, growing our workforce, expanding community capacity, and innovating service delivery.

In FY 2023, DBHDS made significant strides advancing the goals of Right Help, Right Now, accomplished targets on its internal strategic plan to support transformation and other system modernization efforts, and completely restructured the DBHDS facility services division. Virginia’s system intersects with many different facets of the Commonwealth’s vast and varied service delivery system: private hospitals and health systems, Medicaid, law enforcement, education, social services, the criminal justice and courts systems, and providers, among others. DBHDS is values its many partnerships and is working hard to increase collaboration across the system of care. Although meaningful system change is challenging, Virginia is poised to support and develop tangible and achievable means to close capacity gaps, with the goal that every individual will have access to the quality services they need, regardless of where they live.

[Includes reporting requirements of Item 311.J. of the 2023 Appropriation Act.]