Mission and Vision Statement

MISSION

Provide stewardship for the art and science of systemic psychotherapy practice in New England by investing in supportive creative programming using collaborative platforms for cooperative grassroots professional development.

VALUES

• Stewardship: NEAFAST has been appointed by the Massachusetts Allied Board of Mental Health to oversee the continuing education requirements for Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFTs). However, many people provide therapy to families: social workers, mental health counselors, psychologists, therapeutic support staff. NEAFAST is a community for everyone who provides therapeutic services to families and relationships.

• Art and Science: Family psychotherapy requires a specialized blend of understanding the science of family process and development, psychology, and sociology, and the artistic, instinctual skills to guide, direct, and reframe communication strategies in families and their relationships as they are happening.

• Systemic Psychotherapy Practice: Systems theory reminds us that everything is interconnected through relationships: relationships with people; relationships with larger structures and organizations; relationships with cultural narratives. Systemic family therapy places relationship dynamics at the heart of its work instead of individual maladies. This allows for couples, families, and communities to work together to find solutions to their most pressing challenges.

• Supportive and Creative Programming: Family therapy is not for the faint of heart. NEAFASTs programming first seeks to support the educational, professional, and personal development of the family therapist, knowing that a supported, connected family therapist is the most effective strategy to meet the complex needs of New England families. NEAFAST uses creative, innovative processes, such as Equity in the Agency Experience and Stop, Breathe, Write to support the community of family therapists.

• Collaborative Platforms: Every family therapist has information, experience, and wisdom to share with the family therapy community and larger psychotherapy practice. Our peer consultation groups, such as Couples Therapy 101, Moving Toward Antiracism, and Family Therapy and Young Children, are spearheaded by facilitators, whose roles are to guide and direct conversation between learners. 

• Cooperative Grassroots Professional Development: NEAFAST engages in cooperative relationships with other New England communities and organizations to integrate systemic family therapy into training, workforce development, and policy creation, so that our psychotherapists have the greatest amount of professional and personal resources to support New England families in creating long-lasting family and relational health.

VISION

A world where quality relationships impact the behavioral and mental health of all peoples achieved systemically through a just, equitable, and accessible healthcare system for all.