Our Framework
VALUES
Values are the fundamental beliefs or standards that guide an organization’s actions and decisions. These core values guide us:
- Excellence: We see ourselves as leading the behavioral health field and show up as leaders in our roles.
- Integrity: We serve our mission with courage and a strong work ethic.
- Knowledge: We utilize the best available information, practices, and research to guide our decision making.
- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: We honor and value the dignity of all individuals.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Guiding Principles are the foundational guidelines that inform and shape actions within an organization. They are derived from values and provide a framework for decision-making and behavior.
- Be Honest: This principle emphasizes the importance of transparency and integrity in all our interactions.
- Being honest means providing accurate information, acknowledging mistakes, and being truthful about our capabilities and limitations.
- It fosters trust and respect among team members and stakeholders, creating a culture where everyone feels safe to express their thoughts and concerns.
- Intentionally Collaborate: Intentional collaboration involves actively seeking opportunities to work together, sharing knowledge, and leveraging each other's strengths.
- It means being proactive in communication, valuing diverse perspectives, and working towards common goals.
- This principle encourages teamwork, innovation, and the collective achievement of objectives.
- Continuously Reflect: Continuous reflection is about regularly assessing our actions, decisions, and outcomes to learn and improve.
- It involves being open to feedback, analyzing successes and failures, and making adjustments to enhance performance.
- This principle supports personal and professional growth, ensuring that we remain adaptable and responsive to changing circumstances.
These principles are operationalized through behaviors such as being feedback-oriented, growth-minded, data-driven, inclusive, empathetic, respectful, authentic, accountable, and transparent.
BEHAVIORS
Behaviors are the observable actions or reactions of individuals in response to external or internal stimuli. These are manifestations of values and guiding principles in everyday activities. Behaviors are what people do and how they act in different situations.
Where we've been
We know that cultural, organizational, and systemic change is not something that happens overnight or through a day-long retreat. This work is intentional with metrics around success and a scope of work that will take time.
Protests of systemic racism and declarations of Black Lives Matter at the beginning of summer 2020 reopened an ongoing discussion at The Family Institute and brought it to a deeper level. When a group of employees approached the leadership and asked that the organization engage outside expertise to ensure we were upholding our value of diversity, equity, and inclusion; the executive leadership team wholeheartedly agreed.
Over the last 5 years, we have engaged multiple external consultants to help address the needs of our organization. The framework you see above is the culmination of much of that work which has also led to more permanent and embedded human and financial resources. Our work continues. Most recently we have focused our attention on the development of our senior and executive leaders, recognizing the responsibility of our leaders to ensure we are living out our values, guiding principles, and behaviors. We have also engaged an external firm to assess our climate and culture through a formal climate study. And we’ve reinstituted opportunities for all employees to gather and receive organizational updates on a consistent basis.