Experiences with the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services

The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services ignores complaints (for years), dismisses complaints, lies to complaintants, uses AI to provide responses to complaints, and claims no responsibility for Virginia Community Service Boards.

The Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, Daryl Washington, supports the statements from NRVCS Human Rights Advocate, Ashley Wilson, that NRVCS employees "acted appropriately" when they violated the complaintant's rights and that the complaintant's "just upset about the TDO process" despite the evidence.

Thanks to our efforts, the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services have indicated that they're implementing a policy requiring their staff to reply to emails within 24 hours. Unfortunately, their Community Service Board, New River Valley Community Services, had to abduct a software engineer for nearly 250 hours to learn basic business email etiquette, refuse to pay for the time, and now refuse to reply to emails. Despite their claims, they're not responding to our emails within 24 hours.

Official response: Talk to an attorney.

Virginia DBHDS Staff Involved

Since 2023, for 3 years, the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services ignored, and refused to respond to, our complaints. After 3 years, they provided a response that included generative AI content falsely claiming that Community Service Board employees who violated rights were employed by a Peer Center and not the Community Service Board. These are the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Service employees involved in the dismissal our complaints.