Roland Lamb
Deputy Commissioner,
Strategic Planning and Innovation Division
DBHIDS

Roland Lamb is the Deputy Commissioner for Planning and Innovation at the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS). In this role, he oversees efforts to develop and implement strategies to advance the transformation of Philadelphia’s behavioral health system to a recovery-oriented system of care using Public Health strategies. Because of the extent and nature of the various positions held within the behavioral health system — i.e., managed care, services to the uninsured, and coordinating the Single County Authority — Lamb provides cross-system management across several different work cultures.

Lamb has been working in the field of alcohol and substance abuse dependence treatment for over 45 years as counselor, therapist, supervisor, coordinator of addictive services, program director, trainer, lecturer, consultant, and administrator. For the last 15 years, Lamb has been very involved in the development and implementation of integrated behavioral health models. For over 20 years, he has played a significant role, formerly under the leadership of Dr. Arthur C. Evans and currently under David T. Jones, in Philadelphia’s transformation to a recovery-oriented system of care.

Lamb was honored in 2010 by the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, receiving the Nyswander/Dole award. In 2011, he was honored by Faces And Voices Of Recovery with the Vernon Johnson Award. In 2012, Lamb received the Lucien Blackwell Award and was the keynote speaker for the Alcohol Recovery Conference in Sheffield, England. In 2013, Lamb served as conference chair for the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence Conference held in Philadelphia. And in 2014, he was awarded the Caron Foundation’s Brian Early Award for Community Leadership.

Lamb is an adjunct faculty at the University of the Sciences and is also on the faculty of Villanova’s Continuing Education Drug and Alcohol Certification program. He also served as a field reviewer for the current edition of the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s Treatment Criteria for Addictive, Substance-Related, and Co-Occurring Conditions.