Ruth M. Kelley  is joining Cambridge Management Group as a senior adviser.

She has decades of leadership in behavioral health. Her management experience and clinical knowledge  from serving Federally Qualified Health Center  (FQHC) clients are of increasing value as the importance and number of FQHC’s swells and as the role of behavioral health becomes better understood by patients, clinicians, payers and policymakers.  She has extensive knowledge of community health centers’ role in integrating primary care and behavioral health.

Ms. Kelley, a seasoned executive  and a registered nurse, has wide experience with a panoply of behavioral-health issues, particularly in serving populations suffering from substance use  and  co-occurring disorders. Her work at The Dimock Center, which runs  a large FQHC in Boston, where she was chief of behavioral health, received national attention.

In 2014, she received The Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Behavioral Healthcare,  the largest Massachusetts advocacy organization for mental-health and substance-abuse issues.

She has worked in substance-abuse matters for more than 30 years, during which time she has gained extensive experience in general administration, contract negotiations, grant procurement, program and policy  development for women, men and their families.  She has sat on multiple  professional committees at the local, state and national level.

Before her career at Dimock, Ms. Kelley served as nurse, counselor and coordinator  for patients with substance-use disorders  at the Massachusetts Osteopathic Hospital  and at  New England Memorial Hospital. Before then, she worked at Sancta Maria Hospital, in Cambridge, Mass., where, among other achievements, she designed and implemented a substance-abuse awareness program .

Ruth Kelley has a master’s degree in management from The Heller School of Social Policy at Brandeis University and a bachelor of science degree in nursing from   Northeastern University.