McClendon Center to Honor AmeriHealth Caritas DC with Inaugural Transforming Lives Award

New Annual Recognition Celebrates a Decade-Plus of Partnership and Shared Purpose; Award to be presented at Art of Transformation on Thursday, Sept. 17

WASHINGTON, DC — McClendon Center is excited to announce that AmeriHealth Caritas DC is the inaugural recipient of the Transforming Lives Award, a new annual honor recognizing the individuals and organizations whose dedication to whole-person care and collaborative partnership has sparked meaningful transformation in the lives of vulnerable Washington, DC residents.

The award will be presented at Art of Transformation 2026, McClendon Center’s signature annual celebration, on Thursday evening, September 17, 2026, at the historic True Reformer Building, 1200 U Street NW, Washington, DC, from 6 to 8 pm.

Since 2015, AmeriHealth Caritas DC and McClendon Center have shared a common commitment to serving Washington, DC’s most vulnerable residents with dignity, consistency, and care, a partnership that began with a simple but powerful belief: that people living with serious mental health challenges deserve better.

That belief helped bring to life the Patient Discharge Coordination (PDC) program, a model conceived and developed by McClendon Center to ensure that members experiencing psychiatric inpatient care could transition seamlessly back into the community.

Built on the Center’s frontline experience and made possible through partnerships with DC Medicaid managed care organizations, including AmeriHealth Caritas DC, PDC deployed community-based teams to meet members at the bedside before discharge, coordinating psychiatric care, medication management, substance use treatment, housing, and benefits. When someone is discharged from a psychiatric hospitalization, the days and weeks that follow are among the most precarious of their recovery, and PDC was built to close that gap.

The impact has been significant. Since its launch in March 2015, the program has reached more than 26,000 residents across Washington, DC; reconnecting high-need individuals to care, reducing readmissions, and providing individualized pathways to mental health treatment and community resources. McClendon Center has also served as a key referral source for transitional housing, helping move some of the District’s most vulnerable residents off unsafe streets and into stable, supportive environments as a foundation for lasting recovery.

“AmeriHealth Caritas DC has been more than a partner. They have been a cornerstone of what McClendon Center has been able to build for the people we serve. Among DC’s Medicaid managed care organizations, their commitment to innovation and whole-person care is unmatched, and that spirit is exactly what made this collaboration possible. Together, we have reached DC residents at the most vulnerable moments of their recovery. This award is our way of saying what our staff and clients have always known: this work, and this partnership, has transformed lives.”

Sheandinita Dyson, CEO, McClendon Center

In the years since, the partnership with AmeriHealth Caritas DC has expanded to include Post-Emergency Evaluation Services (PEES), deepening collective reach and reinforcing a shared commitment to whole-person, community-based care. What began as a single coordinated care program has grown into a decade-long collaboration that has traveled to national stages and demonstrated, time and again, that this model works.

At AmeriHealth Caritas DC we are more than a managed care plan. We are a community catalyst that believes every District resident deserves a fair and just opportunity to achieve optimal health. We make this aim possible through collaboration with organizations like McClendon Center whose values are aligned, lean-in to innovation, and believe in the art of the possible.

Karen Dale, CEO, AmeriHealth Caritas DC

About Art of Transformation
Art of Transformation is McClendon Center’s signature annual celebration of resilience, community, and the power of shared purpose. First held in 2015, this year marks the ninth edition, bringing together clients, partners, supporters and friends to bear witness to the strength and creativity of those we serve.

This year’s event will be held at the True Reformer Building, built in 1903, the first building in the United States designed, financed, built, and owned by the African American community after Reconstruction, and a fitting backdrop for an evening rooted in shared values and lasting community impact.

For more information, tickets, and partnership opportunities , visit mcclendoncenter.org/aot.

About McClendon Center
McClendon Center supports and empowers people on the journey to becoming their best selves. Founded in 1980, we provide community-based mental health, substance use recovery, and stabilization services to adults with serious mental illness across Washington, DC. For 45-plus years, our staff have shown up – in homes and at shelters, in clinical settings and on the streets – meeting people where they are and staying with them through the hardest chapters of their recovery, with care rooted in dignity and a deep belief in every person’s capacity to heal.

For more information, visit mcclendoncenter.org.