# New York State Department of Mental Hygiene

The Department of Mental Hygiene (DMH) is an agency of the New York state government composed of three autonomous offices:
* the Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS)
* the Office of Mental Health (OMH)
* the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD)
These offices are headed up by a commissioner who also serves on a council that performs inter-office coordination. Their regulations are compiled in title 14 of the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations.

## Addiction

The Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS) provides funding, technical assistance, and oversight to a network of over 1,300 community-based addiction treatment programs, as well as 12 state-operated addiction treatment centers.

## Mental health

The Office of Mental Health (OMH) is responsible for assuring the development of comprehensive plans, programs, and services in the areas of research, prevention, and care, treatment, rehabilitation, education, and training of the mentally ill. Programs include inpatient, outpatient, partial hospitalization, day care, emergency, and rehabilitative treatments and services. OMH regulates and licenses private mental health services, such private psychiatric centers, clinics, and treatment facilities, including those in hospitals and schools. OMH also regulates residential treatment facilities for children and youth operated by nonprofit corporations.

## Developmental disabilities

The Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) provides services and conducts research for those with intellectual disabilities and developmental disabilities (I/DD). It is one of New York State’s largest agencies, with a mandate to provide services and supports to more than 130,000 people with intellectual or developmental disabilities and leads a workforce of more than 22,000 direct support staff, clinicians, nurses, researchers and other professionals throughout the state. It operates 13 Developmental Disabilities Services Offices which operate group homes for the individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in its care.

## History

In 1836–1843 the State Lunatic Asylum at Utica (Utica State Hospital) was established, and in 1865–1869 the Willard Asylum (Willard State Hospital) was established for the incurably insane and mentally ill paupers in the poorhouses. Throughout the late 18th and most of the 19th centuries, families and county poorhouses provided care to the mentally disabled, but in 1890 the State Care Act made the state responsible for the pauper insane. In 1909 the Insanity Law was consolidated in chapter 27 of the Consolidated Laws of New York.
The department was established in 1926–1927 as part of a restructuring of the New York state government, and was given responsibility for people diagnosed with mental retardation, mental illness or epilepsy. Dr. Frederick W. Parsons was appointed the first department commissioner in January, 1927. He was replaced by Dr. William J. Tiffany in 1937, who then resigned in 1943 over an investigation into handling of an outbreak of amoebic dysentery at Creedmoor State Hospital. By 1950, the department had grown into the largest agency of the New York state government, with more than 24,000 employees and an operating cost exceeding a third of the state budget. The state acceded to the Interstate Compact on Mental Health in 1956.
The Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse was transferred from the New York State Department of Health to the Department of Mental Hygiene in 1962. In 1972 the Mental Hygiene Law was revised and reenacted. In 1978, the Department of Mental Hygiene was reorganized into the autonomous Office of Mental Health (OMH), Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, and the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD). These three offices are headed up by a commissioner who also serves on a council that performs inter-office coordination. In 2010 the OMRDD became the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD). In 2012, the Protection of People with Special Needs Act (PPSNA) established the Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs to create uniform safeguards for people with special needs served in residential facilities and day programs by provider agencies that are operated, licensed, or certified by a multitude of state agencies, including the OMH, OASAS, and OPWDD. In 2019 the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse became the Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS).

## Commissioners

DMH
* 1927–1937, Frederick W. Parsons
* 1937–1943, William J. Tiffany
* 1943–1950, Frederick MacCurdy
* 1950–1954, Newton Bigelow
* 1955–1964, Paul H. Hoch
* 1966–1974, Alan D. Miller
* 1975–1978, Lawrence C. Kolb
OMH
* 1978, James A. Prevost
* 1983, Stephen Katz
* 1988, Richard C. Surles
* 1995, James Stone
* 2007, Michael Hogan
* 2014, Ann Marie T. Sullivan
OPWDD
* 1975 (1978), Thomas Coughlin III (initially as Deputy Commissioner for Mental Retardation)
* 1980, James E Introne
* 1982, Zymond L. Slezak
* 1983, Arthur Y. Webb
* 1990, Elin M. Howe
* 1993, Thomas A. Maul
* 2007, Diana Jones Ritter
* 2011, Courtney E. Burke
* 2013, Laurie Kelley
* 2014 - 2018, Kerry Delaney (acting)
* 2019, Theodore A. Kastner
* 2021, Kerri E. Neifeld
OASAS
* 1990 (1992), Marguerite Saunders (initially as Director of the Division of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse)
* 1996, Jean Somers Miller
* 2004, William Gorman
* 2007, Karen Carpenter-Palumbo
* 2011, Arlene González-Sánchez
* 2021, Chinazo Cunningham