Philly behavioral health commissioner Jill Bowen to step down

Philadelphia’s behavioral health commissioner, Jill Bowen, will step down April 15, after leading the department for over three years.

Bowen is moving to Vermont to serve as the state’s commissioner of the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living, the office of Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, announced last week. Bowen has family in Vermont, she said in an email to behavioral health providers who work with the city.

“It is so very hard to leave this amazing city,” she wrote in the Friday email, which was obtained by The Inquirer.

The city did not respond to request for comment.

Bowen took over as interim commissioner of the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services in October 2020. Weeks later, two Philadelphia police officers shot and killed Walter Wallace Jr., a 27-year-old Black man in the midst of a mental health crisis. The incident drew calls for the city to develop ways to respond to behavioral health crises, such as deploying on-call health-care professionals, instead of only police officers.

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“Dr. Bowen is a proven administrator and problem solver who will bring valuable experience to the Department,” Scott said.

New administrations commonly replace most of the commissioners in the city’s operational departments. But the Parker administration hasn’t appointed any health officials yet. Cheryl Bettigole, the former commissioner of health, stepped down in February. Frank A. Franklin, who was Bettigole’s deputy, has been serving as the interim commissioner since. The city said that it will conduct a nationwide search to fill the role.

Bowen, a clinical psychologist, worked in New York City government prior to joining DBHIDS. She moved to Philadelphia in January 2018 as deputy commissioner, and became the interim commissioner in October 2020 after the departure of David T. Jones.

DBHIDS oversees a large number of mental health and addiction programs, and is the city contractor to administer state-funded services for Philadelphians with intellectual disabilities.

Part of this broad portfolio includes the city’s response system to behavioral health crises, such as those who answer crisis calls and mobile crisis units. Bowen led an expansion of crisis services in Philadelphia, which was hailed as a model by federal officials who came to Philadelphia to mark the launch of a national three-digit crisis line, 988.

» READ MORE: When mental health crises require more than a phone conversation, these mobile units come to help

But activist groups, such as the Treatment Not Trauma Coalition, protested DBHIDS in recent years, calling for a faster expansion of crisis response services and pointing to funds allocated by City Council for mobile crisis units that haven’t been used.

The DBHIDS commissioner is also the president of the board of Community Behavioral Health, a nonprofit organization that oversees all Medicaid payments toward addiction and mental health services in Philadelphia.