Values

SPIFFY’s work will be guided by these core values:

COLLABORATION: We work together with the community, build relationships, foster connections, and share resources because we believe a sense of connectedness and a humane process are as important as the end result. We use a collective impact approach, which includes a common understanding, coordination, a shared vision for change, consistent and open communication, and mobilization of formal and informal community leaders. All of our current partners are listed on our partner page.

INCLUSIVITY: We especially value the perspectives and contributions of people from historically marginalized groups, including youth, those with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, those from LGB and trans and non-binary communities, BIPOC people, and individuals living with disabilities, to name a few. By seeking out these voices, we strive to lift the needs of these, and other, disenfranchised groups into the design and implementation of our strategies. We embrace an intersectional approach, and will focus on the unique challenges of those who hold multiple identities within different systems of discrimination. We utilize the Positive Youth Development framework that centers youth participation and a strengths-based approach in our decision-making processes.

COMPASSION: We believe that caring adults, families, and youth themselves help support the health and wellbeing of youth. We work to use a person/community-centered, trauma-informed approach, with the understanding that many people have experienced, witnessed, or been otherwise impacted by trauma and we need to be flexible and responsive in the ways we approach the work to build trust and promote healing.

EVIDENCE: We embrace data in all its forms (both quantitative and qualitative) and science as the foundation for everything we do, planning data-driven strategies and actions that promote positive outcomes and collective impact. Throughout the data collection and analysis process, we incorporate research strategies that promote equity, justice, and community strengths, and when possible, take an intersectionality perspective.

TRUTH & TRANSPARENCY: We pledge to report our data in a truthful manner and to be transparent in the methods we use to gather data. We work to identify and explicitly acknowledge when our practices unwittingly support white supremacy, and commit to addressing these shortcomings in subsequent work that we do.

SOCIAL JUSTICE: We will embark on every piece of work we do with a commitment to dismantling systemic racism and promoting equity and social justice. At its foundation, the work of social justice is the work of systemic transformation. This includes practicing cultural humility to understand our limitations and to shift as we encounter new perspectives and acquire new information. We strive to establish partnerships with community-based organizations that enhance their ability to meet the needs of people of color and their families, and engage individuals and communities of color in the leadership, planning and implementation of strategies. Using a social justice lens to do our work also means incorporating restorative justice as a pillar of substance misuse prevention work.