All of us at the Mis­souri Pre­ven­tion Sci­ence Insti­tute (MPSI), Fam­i­ly Access Cen­ter of Excel­lence (FACE), and Boone Coun­ty Schools Men­tal Health Coali­tion (BCSMHC) want to acknowl­edge the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, fear, hurt, and con­fu­sion that so many of our Asian, Asian Amer­i­can, and Pacif­ic Islander (AAPI) friends, col­leagues, and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are feel­ing as a result of the esca­la­tion of hate crimes and dis­crim­i­na­tion direct­ed at mem­bers of their communities.

We also want to offer our sin­cer­est apolo­gies, as our mes­sage is many days over­due. We con­demn recent as well as all past acts of vio­lence and are 100% com­mit­ted to being bet­ter and doing bet­ter for you. We vow to tru­ly start doing the nec­es­sary work in order to iden­ti­fy ways to both a) pre­vent these heinous acts from reoc­cur­ring, and b) pro­mote the accep­tance, appre­ci­a­tion and love, that each and every human deserves. This work involves high­light­ing, dis­cussing, inter­ven­ing, advo­cat­ing and most impor­tant­ly, pri­or­i­tiz­ing anti-racism efforts across all our organizations.

To our AAPI com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, we stand with you today and every day, against hate, vio­lence, racism, and any and all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion. You deserve so much bet­ter, and espe­cial­ly, deserve to be HERE.