Mental Health Colorado Joins New People First Behavioral Health Alliance (PFBHA)

Mental Health Colorado is proud to be a founding member of the People First Behavioral Health Alliance (PFBHA), a new cross-sector coalition committed to putting Coloradans at the center of health policy.

The alliance brings together behavioral health providers, payers, and consumer advocates to advance policies that improve access to care, supports, and services across Colorado.

For Mental Health Colorado, the formation of PFBHA represents a promising opportunity to approach behavioral health policy differently: by ensuring that the perspectives and lived experiences of the people these systems are intended to serve help shape the policies and practices that affect them.

We are particularly grateful to our provider and payer partners for their commitment to making person-first advocacy foundational to the alliance. Meaningfully incorporating consumer perspectives into health care policy and practice is essential to creating systems that respond to what Coloradans actually need.

Mental Health Colorado and the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition bring a distinct consumer advocacy perspective to PFBHA. Informed by our Brain Wave advocacy network and CCDC’s advocacy network, our role will include elevating the experiences of Coloradans and working alongside our partners to ensure the alliance remains accountable to the people it serves.

By bringing advocates, providers, and payers to the same table, PFBHA creates an opportunity to pair expertise from across Colorado’s behavioral health system with the voices of people who experience that system firsthand.

We believe better policy begins by listening to Coloradans, and we look forward to helping ensure their voices remain at the center of this work.

Learn more about the People First Behavioral Health Alliance at PFBHA.org.