Our Mission
The Birmingham Coalition for Student Mental Health is coming together to develop and pursue equitable, community-driven policy proposals to address student mental health disparities in the Birmingham, Alabama area. We are intentionally centering historically-marginalized populations as we work towards this mission.
Core Values Guiding the Coalition
Equity informs all aspects of our work.
We will pursue policies that promote fairness and remove barriers to opportunity for all members of the community. We will encourage broad participation in the policy-making process. The coalition will actively evaluate and identify root causes of disparities and commit to policy changes that intentionally reduce inequities and advance justice.
We are community-driven.
We need to ensure that we are letting the community take the lead in deciding what policies to pursue. We are all coming to this group with our own experience, knowledge, and opinions about what we think must be done when it comes to student mental health, and all of those things are important. But we must commit to being community-driven.
We are action-oriented.
We are going to develop a specific policy agenda and then fully pursue it as a coalition. This means that we will be developing an advocacy campaign and reaching out to our constituents and supporters to get them involved. Pooling our power base will amplify our message, strengthen our influence with policymakers, and increase our chances for success.
We are focused on systemic change.
Systemic outcomes won’t change unless public policy changes. The primary work of this coalition will be to develop and pursue targeted policy proposals. This doesn’t mean that participating organizations won’t be able to use coalition data to adjust their own programs, design new program initiatives, or establish new collaborations. We hope that the coalition will lead to many positive ‘ripple effects’ for partner organizations, but the focus of the coalition’s work will be on high-impact policy development and collaborative advocacy.