The Distinguished Service Medal is awarded for an employee’s – or group of employees’ – work conduct with the Department for a period of months or years, or involvement in a specific assignment of unusual benefit to the Department.
Distinguished Service Recipient
Dr. Carl “Fab” Fabrizio, Jr., Chief Psychologist, Substance Abuse Treatment Facility
Better known as “Dr. Fab” by his patients and colleagues at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran (SATF), he has rendered distinguished service to CDCR for 21 years.
He began his career in November 2001 as a Clinical Psychologist with the California Youth Authority, now known as the Division of Juvenile Justice. His first assignment was Heman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino.
He dedicated eight years treating 17- to 25-year-old seriously mentally ill – sometimes violent – people in both the Intensive Treatment Program and Intensive Behavioral Treatment Program. He was also a member of the combined custody/mental health training team, conducting in-service training to all staff on a host of custody and mental health-related topics.
When Stark closed in February 2010, Dr. Fab transferred to the Southern Youth Correctional Reception Center and Clinic in Norwalk. He continued providing individual and group therapy and psychological assessment to the most serious mentally ill and violent youthful offenders in the state for an additional two years.
When the Southern Clinic also closed in 2012, he transferred to a Clinical Psychologist position at the Region IV (4) Division of Adult Parole Operations, Parole Outpatient Clinic in Orange County. There, Dr. Fab provided individual and group psychotherapy to seriously mentally ill parolees and registered sex offenders.
When the passing of Assembly Bill 109 eliminated his position, he transferred to the Joint Department of State Hospitals/CDCR Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT program. This innovative, highly demanding hybrid inpatient treatment was taught by outside consultants and took three years to complete. Dr. Fab simultaneously provided DBT to incarcerated patients and state hospital patients.
Dr. Fab’s leadership helped establish the first fully staffed comprehensive DBT treatment program in California in 2014.
At SATF, he has supervised Short-Term Restricted Housing, Clinical Correctional Case Management, and Enhanced Outpatient Programs with diligence, flexibility, and professionalism.
For the past two years, he has served SATF as Chief Psychologist during the institution’s most trying and incredibly demanding transition in and through the COVID-19 pandemic.
As Chief Psychologist, he has demonstrated exceptional leadership, nimble responsiveness, and visible stamina. He does this all while meeting his daily operational goals and overarching vision to provide world-class mental health treatment.
