This article has been updated.

By Gina Macris

Kerri Zanchi, who for three years has led Rhode Island’s Division of Developmental Disabilities, announced March 5 that she will step down at the end of the month to pursue a different professional opportunity closer to her family in Massachusetts.

Zanchi, who came to the job early in 2017 with a passion for bringing equity to the lives of those facing intellectual challenges, has been given high marks for improving frayed relationships between the community and the bureaucracy of the state Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH).

But she has faced mounting demands on her energies and time from two directions; federal civil rights agreements with increasingly exacting requirements for integrating adults with developmental disabilities in their communities, and an inherited funding mechanism that was originally designed for a segregated system of care.

In January, 2017, she was the first developmental disabilities professional in a decade to be selected to lead the Division of Developmental Disabilities. In the past three years, in response to companion federal civil rights agreements of 2013 and 2014, Zanchi has has expanded the professional staff of the division to put greater emphasis on supported employment services, gear up a quality improvement initiative and increase responsiveness to issues surrounding high school students moving into adult services.

Although BHDDH has won nearly $20 million more in the last few years for raising the wages of direct care workers in the private sector, the financial picture for the agencies that employ them remains tenuous, according to a recent consultants’ report.

In a March 5 letter to private service providers and others in the developmental disabilities community, Zanchi said she was stepping down “with mixed emotions.”

“With the interests of my family, I have decided to pursue an opportunity in Massachusetts with a continued focus and commitment to disability services,” said Zanchi, the mother of three school-aged boys.

“I remain tremendously appreciative of your consistent partnership, your support and your tenacity,” Zanchi said.

“It has been a rewarding experience for me personally and professionally and I will carry forward the values of the Rhode Island DD system,” she said.

Reached on Friday, March 6, Zanchi said she has been overwhelmed by the number of supportive calls and emails she has received from parents and others in the community during the first 24 hours after her announcement.

Zanchi, a family member of a Rhode Islander with a disability, said she has done her utmost to balance her role in changing the developmental disability service system with ensuring that she and her staff have been responsive to the needs to individuals and families on a daily basis.

Asked whether the demands of the job got to be too much for her at this point in her life, she said she has made it a point to answer every call from consumers and families and listen to the “good and not so good experiences of people. I wouldn’t change that,” Zanchi said, but “that does take a lot of time. The other demands are always still there.”

She said she would advise the future leadership to keep nurturing those personal relationships with the community. “You’ve got to stay close the work and you’ve got to be available to the people who rely on us,” she said.

Zanchi praised many collaborative efforts that have led to a number of changes, including expansion of supported employment services. Others that respond to the consent decree and to a gap in mental health services for adults with developmental disabilities include:

• The roll-out of an electronics record system, important for efficiency and for data collection and analysis in furthering the goals required by the 2014 civil rights consent decree

• A review of the rates and the funding model used to reimburse private service providers that is now underway

• Efforts to increase supported employment

• A new mental health initiative called Project START, which will focus on community-based crisis management for persons facing both intellectual and behavioral challenges.

Kevin Savage, Associate Director For Quality Management at BHDDH, will serve as interim director of the Division of Developmental Disabilities until a permanent replacement is selected.

No details about a search for a new director were immediately available.

Zanchi received her master’s degree in social work from Rhode Island College in 1999 but has worked most of her professional life in Massachusetts in the field of disabilities. Zanchi is a former Assistant Commissioner of the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Council, where she provided leadership and advocacy for six departments of state government focused on helping people with disabilities live in the community.