Virtual Town Hall: Covid-19 Response in St. Louis Region

UMSL's Community Innovation and Action Center (CIAC), along with other community partners in the region, hosted a virtual town hall 4/21/20, to inform policy scholarship around local impact and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We invited several practitioners, community leaders and researchers who shared their perspectives on our social system’s capacity to meet the basic needs of historically marginalized groups. Our hope was that this town hall would inform recent calls for policy scholarship and also clarify actionable steps to take in developing a system that honors humanity and dignity as well as distribute resources equitably. This is considered the first step in an ongoing set of collaborative investigations. We value your lived-experience and observations, which are crucially important in contextualizing how COVID-19 impacts everyday life and shaping how policymakers need to respond. PANELISTS: Dr. Sheila Grigsby, MSN/MPH, RN, PhD - Assistant Professor, College of Nursing University of Missouri - St. Louis Alicia Hernández - Community Organizer ACLU Missouri Sara John - Executive Director Interfaith Committee on Latin America (IFCLA) Dr. Chris Prener, PhD - Assistant Professor, Sociology St. Louis University Katie Kaufmann - Director Ready by 21 St. Louis Chris Sullivan, PhD, LPC - Director of Health, Counseling, and Disability Access Services University of Missouri - St. Louis Facilitators: Dr. Adriano Udani PhD - Associate Professor, Political Science University of Missouri - St. Louis Désirée P. Jones-Smith M.Ed. – Sr. Manager of Campus Partnerships University of Missouri – St. Louis – Community Innovation and Action Center