Our Values

Deliver High Quality Programs

We equip social service providers with relevant, actionable behavioral health tools.

  • Apply lessons from practice and research in behavioral health, implementation science, and adult learning
  • Co-design programs that respond to real situations providers encounter, settings they work in, and communities they serve
  • Prioritize experiential learning, with opportunities for skills practice, reflection, rest, connection, and joy
  • Promote skill gains and practice changes through training, ongoing coaching, and implementation support
  • Create paths to continued learning, career advancement, and academic credit

Center Community Capabilities

We center the diverse expertise, relationships, and healing practices in communities and community-based organizations. We locate power to improve behavioral health in theseĀ  capabilities.

  • Acknowledge personal and collective dimensions of harm and healing
  • Uplift and support healing work that already happens in communities
  • Affirm the practice-based wisdom, strengths, and skills that social service providers bring
  • Invite behavioral health specialists into new relationships with community organizations
  • Promote cross-disciplinary learning and collaboration, to include community expertise and Indigenous knowledge about care and wellbeing
  • Translate promising strategies into practice in community settings

Address Systemic Harms

We seek to acknowledge and reduce harms related to racism and other inequities. We counter impacts of being targeted for harm - by color, ethnicity, or national origin; economic status; sex, sexual orientation, or gender expression; disability; mental health status, and more - with welcome, respect, agency, and care.

  • Acknowledge that historic and persistent racism and other systemic harms cause pain and drive related social, economic, and health disparities
  • Challenge anti-Black racism and other forms of violence and discrimination
  • Value the diverse and nuanced stories of people and communities most impacted
  • Celebrate legacies of care, survival, resilience, and joy
  • Work with curiosity and humility
  • Uplift practitioners and scholars who are involved in and committed to the communities they serve
  • Help build healing-centered organizations

Support Agency and Growth

We believe behavioral health and social services can and should expand self-determination, healing, connection, and growth.

  • Invest in and protect the wellbeing of the helpers
  • Equip providers to engage and support people impacted by trauma or behavioral health issues
  • Advance affirming, person-centered services
  • Cultivate personal and collective capabilities for learning, growth, and healing
  • Build skills for self-determination
  • Expand pathways to healing to include organizing, collective action, and other helpful practices