this post was written in January 2023 and backdated to indicate the actual date of the event

I participated in the Allegheny County DHS case competition Nov 9-12, 2022. It was an incredible experience and my first real ‘stress-test’ as a grad student in Public Administration. On Wednesday night, we got the assignment:

“Craft a solution to a pandemic-related impact with a goal of managing its long-term implications. Your investment can address the immediate needs or focus on emerging trends and opportunities. Choose one or more target population and local government partner to ground your idea.”

We had until Saturday at 7AM. 60 Hours. Easy enough, right?

The first night, we came up with an idea of an idea: mentral health issues were exacerbated by the pandemic, hitting especially hard in communities that already saw underprovision of MH services: rural areas, low income families, and adolescents aged 0-18.

The first full day was more storming than forming, and one of our team members decided to withdraw from the competition. The two of us remaining decided to stick with our project despite the pressure to present a solution in less than 36 hours. We started again the next morning, and quickly settled on our final idea framework. The next 8-10 hours were a blur of slides, revisions, policy points, and last-minute adjustments, but at the end of it, we had a solution we were happy with.

“Healing on Wheels” is an innovative program designed in direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to fill a gap in mental health care for those who were unable to travel to seek care, and to reduce the stigma around mental health services. The program is designed to be modular to meet community needs - supporting a small but robust staff of professionals that can be tailored to the needs of a specific target group or area. It would also include anonymized data collection to monitor impact and further expand the program with additional mobile units or brick and mortar locations in the areas with the highest unmet need.

We presented the proposal to judges from DHS and Pittsburgh-area businesses, and placed first in our cohort, and third overall in the competition. Our full presentation can be found below: