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Mission

Our Vision

Throughout Kansas there is awakened awareness of the struggles, challenges, and untapped possibilities for children and adolescents of all races, cultures, and classes who have education , mental health and behavior problems. Effective family driven advocacy ensure that children's services remain highly visible, state and local priorities. Individuals families, institutions, communities and the legislative body at all levels work collaboratively and creatively to promote success for each child. Families find and get the right diagnoses for their children and obtain needed services and support so that these children grow up resilient, emotionally strong, and capable of fulfilling their dreams and potentials. Kids thrive at home, as well as enjoy full access to education, medical, mental health, and spiritual resources. They are welcome and respected in their communities, neighborhoods, schools, and places of worship. Racism, poverty, and discrimination are no longer barriers to receipt of services nor are they factors in the quality of these services an resulting outcomes.

The concerns and voices of families raising children with mental health and behavior issues drive agency and legislative responses and actions. These families connect and speak with passion and the truth of their experience through their state organization, Keys for Networking, Inc. Secure funding, rich talent pools, and broad experience propel Keys staff and board to champion enlightened change processes at federal, state, and local levels. Consequently, when Keys staff or individual family members visit with their legislators and other policy makers, they enjoy informed, sensitive, and action-directed dialogue. When families speak, people listen.

All child-serving systems in Kansas are engineered to deliver timely, compassionate, competent, respectful and effective practices for children's mental health practices that produce immediate results while contributing to sustained positive outcomes. Partnered with Keys for Networking, Inc. these systems are dedicated to anticipating and preparing to meet continuing and emerging needs. They are also accountable and responsive to each and every individual family raising children with mental health educational and behavioral problems. In sum, these systems support families to raise these children with dignity and with joy.

Mission Statement

In support of the vision, Keys for Networking, Inc. serves to sustain and provide leadership for a broad and deep statewide network of families of all races, cultures, and classes. We harness the passion of Kansas families and help focus it as a potent force for systems change on behalf of children with education, mental health and behavior problems. We are passionate advocates at the community and state level for the rights of these children and families. We extend a parent to parent lifeline to families across Kansas so that community organization might draw strength from us and in turn better respond to the needs of families requiring guidance, training, support, and personal advocacy. Through our evolving relationships with community organizations, we jointly discover and share new models, new technologies, new tools, and new visions that enrich the capacities of our partners, strengthen our network, and allow us to serve with pride in this leadership role.

Organizational Goals

1. To promote family input/involvement on decision making committees, and forums which develop and monitor policy, planning, and service delivery for children with serious emotional/behavioral problems (or at risk of those problems) at all levels of government and policy making-local, regional, state, legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
2. To nurture and support family connections to each other and to quality services.
3. To provide family assistance through information, support, and training in local communities resulting in self-advocacy.
4. To study and disseminate to parents and to their school and community service providers information on best practices and programs that work as well as link to agencies and researchers who study and analyze what works for families. 
5. To refine the organizational structure, develop financial resources, and support the management structure of the Board of Directors and staff to enhance the organization's capacity as a parent/family-driven organization.