Directory

Helen Jones-Kelley

Adjunct Professor of Law

Adjunct

School of Law

Profile

Helen Jones-Kelley is the executive director of the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services System for Montgomery County, Ohio. Before moving to that position, she was Special Assistant to the President of Central State University and concurrently served as interim General Counsel and Secretary to the University Board of Trustees as well as an adjunct professor in Criminal Justice.

Her career has spanned numerous roles, which include executive director of Montgomery County Children Services, both the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and Montgomery County Job and Family Services, the City of Dayton’s Night Prosecutor Program and as a Unit Manager and trainer at Lexis-Nexis. Jones-Kelley implemented the CASA Program at Montgomery County Juvenile Court, where she also served as Assistant Legal Director and a Magistrate. Additionally, she was a faculty consultant for Georgetown University’s Center on Juvenile Justice Reform in the McCourt School of Public Policy. She is currently an adjunct professor in the Political Science Department at UD, where she teaches Public Health Policy.

Jones-Kelley earned her B.S.Ed. from Miami University in Oxford, OH in 1973 where she also did graduate study in Gerontology/Human Services Administration. She earned her J.D. from the University of Dayton in 1984.

Her commitment to the community includes past and present service on numerous national, state and local boards including National CASA, Central Area Links, the Dayton Foundation, Miami Valley Hospital, Premier Health, Ohio CASA, Sinclair Community College, Dayton Children’s Hospital and Foundation Boards, the OnMain Board, FCFC, Urban League of Greater Southwestern Ohio, Miami University’s Public Health Advisory Board, Ohio Federation for Health Equity and Social Justice, Ohio Association of Community Behavioral Health Authorities (OACBHA), Artemis Center, Buckeye Trails Girl Scouts and the KeyBank Advisory Board, among others. She currently chairs the Health Path Foundation Board, the Miami Valley Urban League Advisory Board, The Dayton Chapter of The Links, Incorporated and she co- founded the African American Women’s Giving Circle.

She has received numerous honors including the Ten Top Women of the Year Award, the Evangeline Lindsay Award, Friend of Children, African American Living Legacy and Woman of Integrity, and both the YWCA’s Woman of Influence and Lifetime Achievement awards. Last year she was honored as an NCCJ Humanitarian of the year. She was the 2021 recipient of the Katherine Kennedy Brown Award from the Junior League of Dayton and was recognized for the past two years as one of the Dayton Business Journal’s Power 50 Women.