Metamorphosing for the Community: COVID19 Assistance and Equity Education

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

In 2020, Montgomery County, Ohio, including the City of Dayton, was still recovering from one of the most challenging times in the City’s history. The year 2019 housed two large crises in a short, three-month period. These crises included fifteen early morning tornadoes that instantly displaced hundreds of people and a mass shooting that occurred in Dayton’s historic Oregon District, transforming the lives of many, and embedding fear and sadness in the community.While the community continued to rebuild and mourn the many losses 2019 brought; the year 2020 proved to be just as challenging very quickly. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine declared a stay-at-home order in March 2020. Montgomery County Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Resources (ADAMHS) quickly began assisting our providers in moving to telehealth and providing additional supports to the community. Anticipating the mental health implications the pandemic would ignite, ADAMHS prepared to be a leader in the health industry.The year also brought about severe challenges surrounding social inequity and racism, which ADAMHS supports as a health emergency. After the senseless murder of George Floyd, ADAMHS issued a public statement on racism as a public health emergency and took action to ensure we were actively advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion internally and throughout the behavioral healthcare system. The important lesson 2020 taught us – we must transform, or like our symbolic butterfly, metamorphize, to fit the needs of our community in ways in which we never imagined.