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Commission Member

  • Mrs. Virginia Trotter Betts, MSN,JD,RN,FAAN
    (Departmen of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities)
    Nashville, TN

  • Virginia Trotter Betts, a nationally and internationally recognized leader in health and mental health policy, serves as the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities (TDMHDD) as a member of the cabinet of Governor Phil Bredesen. In January 2007, Betts was reappointed to a second term as TDMHDD Commissioner by Governor Bredesen.

    Betts is on leave from her position as Director for Health Policy and Professor of Nursing at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center (UTHSC) in Memphis. Prior to this University appointment, she served as the Senior Advisor on Nursing and Policy to the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Within the HHS Office of Public Health and Science, she was actively engaged in the Surgeon General's initiatives on mental health. These included development of Mental Health: a Report of the Surgeon General; Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent Suicide; and the national campaign to combat the stigma of mental illness. She headed the HHS Interdepartmental Mental Health Policy Team, which received the 2000 HHS Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service.

    A graduate of the University of the Tennessee College of Nursing, the Vanderbilt School of Nursing, and the Nashville School of Law, Betts is an advanced practice psychiatric nurse and an attorney who completed postdoctoral studies in health policy as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow. She spent much of her career as a faculty member at Vanderbilt University at both the School of Nursing and the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies. Her publications are numerous, and her presentations and consultations, both in the United States and internationally, have been widely acclaimed.

    She is currently a member of the Tennessee Nurses Association (where she served as president from 1985-1987) and the Tennessee Bar Association. Betts is also a member of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, the American Association of Nurse Attorneys, and Sigma Theta Tau. She serves the academic community through appointments on the Columbia University School of Social Work Advisory Council and both the UTHSC and MUSC Doctoral Program Advisory Boards. Nationally, she serves on the advisory boards of SPAN USA and the National Foundation for Mental Health. In 2008, Betts was sworn in as President of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors after serving as Vice President since 2007. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the National Academy of Public Administrators.

    Betts was president of the American Nurses Association from 1992-1996 and led the ANA and the nursing profession during the national debate on health care reform from 1991- 1994. She commissioned the development of professional nursing’s “White Papers” on health reform and the role of nurses in a reformed system including “Health Care Reform: Essential Mental Health Services.”

    In her post as TDMHDD Commissioner, Betts serves as leader of the State’s public mental health, substance abuse, and developmental disabilities authority charged with planning for and promoting an array of services from prevention to recovery for all Tennesseans. Betts has focused the department’s resources and programs on quality clinical care and on recovery through a focused commitment to bring science to service and redesign of crisis services, implementation of clinical algorithms, and promotion of evidence-based practices. TDMHDD provides direct services to clients at the State’s five RMHIs, contracted with Tennessee community providers and oversees the mental health and substance abuse service package delivering quality services to TennCare enrollees.

    Although much has been done, Betts believes that much more can be accomplished. Her priorities for the future include: inclusion of a viable mental health and substance abuse benefit in employer-based insurance; integration of mental health, substance abuse, and primary health care services; and enhanced implementation of prevention programs for substance abuse and early intervention programs for individuals with the first signs of a mental illness. She seeks to transform Tennessee’s public mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance abuse system with prevention, early intervention, community care, recovery and resiliency as organizing principles.

     

  • Commissioner's Office
    Cordell Hull Building 3rd Floor
    425 Fifth Avenue, North
    Nashville, TN 37243
    virginiatrotter.betts@state.tn.us

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