News Release: Mental Health Commission Names New State Director at SC Department of Mental Health

Columbia, SC — The South Carolina Mental Health Commission has selected Kenneth M. Rogers, MD, as the next state director for the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (BHDD) Office of Mental Health (BHDD Office of Mental Health). Dr. Rogers is expected to begin the post April 2, 2020.

Born and raised in Dillon, South Carolina, Dr. Rogers is a 1990 graduate of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. In the 1990s, he completed both his General Psychiatry residency and a Child Psychiatry fellowship at the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute, which at that time was BHDD Office of Mental Health’s teaching hospital. Dr. Rogers is Board certified in both General Psychiatry and Child Psychiatry.

“Dr. Rogers has an outstanding record of clinical, organizational, and educational achievement,” said Commission Chair Greg Pearce. “Throughout his career, he has managed and expanded successful programs, as well as developed new programs in areas of need; these skills are essential in the leadership of South Carolina’s public mental health system.”

Dr. Rogers currently serves as Chief of Psychiatry at Parkland Health and Hospital System and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX. He previously served as Chair of Psychiatry and Associate Chief Clinical Officer at the former Greenville Health System (now PRISMA). In his current position, Dr. Rogers has worked to expand mental health services to underserved populations by partnering with both traditional and non-traditional locations of services, including faith based communities, schools, and correctional facilities.

The Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (BHDD) Office of Mental Health’s mission is to support the recovery of people with mental illnesses, giving priority to adults with serious and persistent mental illness and children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances. The Agency serves approximately 100,000 people each year, approximately 30,000 of whom are children and adolescents. As South Carolina’s public mental health system, it provides outpatient mental health services through a network of 16 community mental health centers and associated clinics, serving all 46 counties, and psychiatric hospital services via three State hospitals, including one for substance use treatment. In addition to mental health services, the Agency provides long-term care services in one community nursing care center and three State veterans’ nursing homes.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 13, 2020

Contact: BHDD Office of Mental Health Office of Public Affairs
803-898-8582
Tracy.LaPointe@omh.bhdd.sc.gov