ATLANTA – Georgia’s main behavioral health agency will soon be getting a new leader to replace Commissioner Judy Fitzgerald, who announced this week that she will retire from the role.
Fitzgerald was first appointed commissioner of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD) by then-Gov. Nathan Deal in 2016. Prior to that, she served as the chief of staff and deputy commissioner at DBHDD.
DBHDD is one of the main state agencies responsible for providing social supports and care to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Georgia.
The department also plays an important role in coordinating and providing mental health services. For example, DBHDD oversaw the recent launch of the new 9-8-8 mental health crisis hotline in Georgia. And it operates five psychiatric hospitals across the state as well as community-service boards to provide local mental health services.
“With gratitude for our progress … I have decided to retire from state service at the end of the year,” Fitzgerald wrote in a note to colleagues.
Fitzgerald described some of the key changes she has seen in her decade at the agency.
“It is hard to image that a little more than 10 years ago, the state was almost exclusively reliant on institutional settings to serve individuals with mental illness or with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” she wrote.
“We have overhauled our hospital services; we have made significant investments in a community-based system of crisis services … and we have led the country with our commitment to peer-led recovery.”
Gov. Brian Kemp will nominate a new commissioner. Kemp’s pick will have to be approved by the agency’s nine-member board, which is next scheduled to meet on Dec. 8.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.