Building Resilience in the Face of Crisis: Lessons Learned from a Community Behavioral Healthcare Organization

The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 or COVID19) has defied the healthcare system at every turn. The impact of this pandemic on ensuring the health and safety of individuals with serious and persistent mental illness—particularly those living in community-based residential settings—has been challenging. As one of the largest community behavioral health organizations in Oregon, the authors present a descriptive study of an organizational response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper presents barriers, strategies, and lessons learned, through firsthand experience and interviews with key residential staff. This paper is not formal research, but the integration and assessment of staff perspective, and organizational experience and knowledge. By sharing these insights and experience, this paper contributes to a collective roadmap for the future, to guide responses to public health crises or other unprecedented events that threaten organizations caring for some of the most vulnerable members of the community.