Chatham County Roundup: Helping Others and Ourselves

Join Aaron Keck every Tuesday afternoon for Chatham County Roundup, a recurring series that shines the spotlight on Chatham County through engaging discussions and interviews with locals, newsmakers, officials and more.

This week on the Chatham County Roundup, 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck spoke with Chair of the Chatham County Board of Commissioners Karen Howard. They spoke about the COVID-19 outbreak at a long-term care facility that resulted in a resident’s death and the ways the county government is adapting to still conduct business while protecting people’s safety.

Howard also spoke about a challenge facing many people during this time that often isn’t being discussed: mental health.

“We’re all kind of saying ‘chin up’ and ‘we can do this,'” she explained, “but it really does have an impact on multiple populations that require some sort of support outside of what they can get in their household.”

Howard said the uncertainty of when the pandemic will end has not only been damaging to some residents’ mental health, but also severely limited their typical resources that are available.

“I think about people that live alone, being required to shelter in place alone for multiple weeks,” she said. “If we’re going to be really thoughtful about how we meet this challenge in the future, we need to be thinking about how we can mitigate the impact for people with significant mental health challenges who don’t get access to the resources they need during that period.”

Howard said to help herself, she’s been offering to help others in the community however she can, and encourages others to do whether it’s to help someone’s mental health — or their own.

Listen below for the full conversation, and tune in weekly for conversations about Chatham County happenings, people, news and more.