CARF International Board of Directors elects Donald Dew as Chair

Dew brings decades of experience from distinguished career in behavioral health and employment and community services

The CARF International Board of Directors elected Donald Dew as Board Chair. His one-year term began on January 1, 2022. Dew has been involved with CARF governance previously, having been elected an At-Large Trustee and serving from 1995 until 2000, and then being elected as a Board Member in August 2015.

Dew became involved with CARF in 1989 when he was appointed as acting director of Habilitative Systems, Inc., located in Chicago, Illinois. “We had already gone through a mock survey for CARF accreditation, and I decided to use the CARF standards as a blueprint to help us get through this very challenging executive transition; it was a playbook for me.” Since 1990, Dew’s position has been President and CEO of Habilitative Systems, which provides CARF-accredited behavioral health programs and employment and community services. Dew is also a former CARF surveyor for both accreditation areas.

On his election to Board Chair, Dew said, “I want to add my perspective, specifically around behavioral health and race and health equity issues, to the excellence and competency already at the board level of CARF.” Dew said President/CEO Brian Boon’s vision and leadership, “particularly navigating challenging times, and the combined skill set of my board colleagues make for a very powerful leadership team.”

Dew succeeds Richard Forkosh, who served as Board Chair from 2018 through 2021. Dr. Boon said, “Mr. Dew has a remarkable track record of being an advocate for quality services, such services often critical for those marginalized in our communities. CARF is proud that Mr. Dew’s board leadership role will advance and support CARF’s mission as an accreditor to promote quality services in order to enhance the lives of persons served.”

Dew has a distinguished career in health and human services and recently received the Philanthropic Lifetime Achievement Award from The Executive Service Corps. He was also elected as the 2022 Chair of the West Side Health Equity Collaborative in Illinois; his term will commence in October. His continued advisory roles include Collaborative Bridges, Guardianship and Advocacy Commission, the UIC Department on Disability and Human Development, Black Administrators in Child Welfare, Behavioral Health Consortium of Illinois, and the Illinois Disability Summit. Above all, Dew describes himself as an advocate, his work being centered on healthcare transformation encompassing a number of issues, “finding a way to lift up the most marginalized in our society and give them the opportunity to live a qualitative life…The perspective of inner-city life, urban challenges, and generational trauma, having lived that myself and trying to bring solutions to the table, these kinds of conversations I gladly and willingly bring to the Board level at CARF.”