…and we’re off into 2021. We’ve already faced some challenges, but we have a full year of possibilities and learned a lot from last year. We learned how resilient and capable we are.
- We learned more about how our community cares for each other.
- We learned the value and appreciation our community has for our lifesaving mission.
- We learned how we can do better.
We’re proud of a lot of things from 2020. Crisis Services’ first responders remain active through COVID-19, both on-site at our crisis center and off-site through our mobile outreach and intervention services responding to the community.
Seamlessly and without interruption, our first responders continue to provide immediate intervention, help and hope. This was big, but it also wasn’t our only battle.
While mobilizing our response to COVID-19, Crisis Services mobilized our response to creating racial equity.
It is important to note how the pandemic intertwined with needed focus on lethality, health disparities, and systemic inequality leveraged against communities of color. The overrepresentation of people of color, the poor, the disabled and chronically mentally ill within criminal justice systems has caused isolation and harm for marginalized individuals. As a crisis care provider, it is our responsibility to respond. Our equity work in 2020 continues in 2021.
Crisis Services’ vision for crisis care is rooted in providing inclusive, trustworthy, and effective interventions that address the impacts of racism and historical trauma on mental health outcomes for people of color.
Crisis Services is proud of our hard work and commitment in addressing two major and overlapping public health and safety challenges at once. Our team has been working on critical programming and services to address this needed change, improving crisis response to all in our community. It is work we feel uniquely suited to undertake and strive to continue with our remarkable team.
Their efforts continue to be courageous and remarkable. Here’s to the work ahead of us, #ThisMomentForward.