Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School Medicine, will remain Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) under the new administration of Governor Ned Lamont.
In a letter to DMHAS staff dated Jan. 8, Delphin-Rittmon wrote that she is honored to accept Lamont’s nomination to continue leading the agency, which provides services to people who live with mental health and substance use disorders. The agency, she wrote, supports over 100,000 people in recovery.
“Thanks to our partnership with the recovery community, great strides have been made in addressing the opioid crisis and connecting individuals living with opioid use disorder to treatment and recovery supports,” Delphin-Rittmon wrote.
Following her confirmation, Delphin-Rittmon wrote that she plans to “continue the mission and vision of the department to provide high-quality behavioral health care to the people of Connecticut. This includes ensuring that access to the many pathways to addiction and mental health recovery are supported by our system and available to the people we serve. We must also continue our work to break down the silos of addiction, mental health and physical health, focusing on the whole person.”
Delphin-Rittmon is one of nine commissioners in the administration of outgoing Gov. Dannel P. Malloy who will be retained by the Lamont administration.
She was sworn in as commissioner in 2015 after serving as the department’s deputy commissioner. She had been a senior policy advisor in DMHAS and director of the agency’s Office of Multicultural Healthcare Equity. For two years beginning in 2012, she served as senior advisor in the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
At Yale, Delphin-Rittmon has worked as director of health equity and multicultural research and consultation at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health (PRCH), which is affiliated with the Connecticut Mental Health Center.