As our first step in addressing systemic racism, we are developing a formal commitment to address it. Now just a concept, the goal is to put these words into practice.

Our mission is to “Address the root cause of larger societal challenges by stopping unnecessary suffering and eradicating preventable perinatal mood & anxiety disorders”. When we review this goal we see the larger societal challenges as directly intersecting with our need to incorporate anti-racist practices and to reduce discrimination for marginalized families in the mental health space.

Our organizational vision  is “To be the go to national community for all parents by meeting them where they are with an evidence-based support and resource network”. We have done some work in meeting parents where they are - hosting programming in multiple languages and in many communities and locations to ensure they can be accessed by all families. We also are delivering programming online and will work to increase our knowledge mobilization efforts through research, forums, education and training.

We know we need to do more to ensure we are meeting the needs of parents we may not be reaching. We are currently performing an environmental scan to determine the needs of more vulnerable people - BIPOC, low SES, NICU, history of PMAD, newcomers. We are also developing resources to meet the needs of BIPOC parents by completing a survey to determine their unique needs, and to incorporate these learnings into developing tailored programming. Our onboarding process for community managers will pair them with community partners serving marginalized and radicalized communities to inform our events and activities development.