Mission and Vision
The Allston Brighton Health Collaborative (ABHC) is a neighborhood based public health nonprofit that convenes a network of organizations, advocates, elected officials, and residents. Together we work to improve the systems that impact health and wellbeing in Boston’s Allston-Brighton neighborhoods. ABHC centers community members who are most in need, under-resourced, and under-served in its work to address and improve equitable access to transportation, food, community resources, and other public health needs as they arise.
Our vision is a more just and equitable Allston-Brighton where resources are available and accessible, and where all who live, work, learn, create and play here have the knowledge, data, and engagement skills to equitably and collectively advance community outcomes and thrive.
Our Strategies for Impact
ABHC recognizes that by improving programs and policies that center community members who are most marginalized, under-resourced, and adversely impacted, we improve outcomes for everyone. We use a four-part assessment to determine how and whether ABHC is best suited to lead on a community health issue:
- Is it Community Centered? Have Allston-Brighton community members who are most marginalized, under-resourced, and adversely impacted raised up this need, and are there community members engaged in the issue?
- Is it Data Driven? Do community-based or neighborhood data sources, or community-driven research reflect a need for focus on the issue?
- Is it Network Driven? Do ABHC Network Members want ABHC to focus on the issue? Are any ABHC Network Members currently convening or leading on the issue?
- Is it Leadership supported? Do ABHC Steering Committee and staff support financial investment on the issue? Does it align with ABHC’s mission and vision?
If a community health issue completes this assessment, ABHC staff lead an effort with existing network members to further determine ABHC’s role in addressing the issue, with an emphasis on avoiding redundancy and partnering whenever possible. ABHC uses these guiding principles to ensure community voice and leadership is center.
ABHC Network Values and Commitments
ABHC is on the homeland of the Pawtucket and Massachusett tribal nations. We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced removal from this land that many of our ancestors participated in and benefited from. We honor the knowledge, resilience, and joy of the Pawtucket and Massachusett people past and present. We commit to honoring and respecting the many Indigenous peoples still connected to this land on which we live.
This history is connected to the systemic, institutional, and individual racism that Boston is built on. Our residents, patients, parents, colleagues and neighbors continue to experience the impacts of this dangerous inequity, and so do we.
Our values recognize and reflect our active daily intention to dismantle these systems and structures of inequity:
- Equity as a process and a principle.
- An understanding of the legacy and influence of white supremacy on our community.
- Centering members of our community in our work and conversation, including by using person-centered language. We are all humans first, regardless of our income, housing status, or resource needs.
- A safe, welcoming and inclusive environment for people of all races, ethnicities, ages, cultures, religions and spiritual practices, genders, languages, abilities, and identities.
- Interest and willingness to listen to and learn from others.
- Respectful communication.
- Respect for our identities, including pronouns, orientation, language and heritage.
- Creating brave and necessary space where we can make mistakes, learn and do better through the care and accountability provided by others.
- Effort to understand and acknowledge impact and how it is different from intent.
- There is always some help we can provide: information, resource connection, or an opportunity to collaborate.