People First Behavioral Health Alliance
Behavioral health policy, rooted in the person seeking care.
A Colorado alliance of providers, payers, and advocates — at one table, building the dependable policy Colorado needs.
What We Stand For
Every rule, contract, and dollar should answer one question: is this actually helping people?
Every position the People First Alliance takes is measured against the same commitments — not the interests of any one institution.
- We put the interests of the people of Colorado ahead of our individual organizations' needs. The system should work for the person standing in front of it, regardless of their circumstance.
Alliance
Member
Voice
We are allied around the person. We encourage more organizations who share this vision to join us, especially advocacy partners. We can solve things that feel unsolvable. We can, because the alternative is unacceptable.
23%
of Coloradans report a behavioral health need each year (BRFSS)
10%
reduction in people served from 2022–2025 — roughly 20,000 fewer Coloradans — despite additional providers
$30M
increase in Medicaid revenue among those same providers, 2024–2025
54
Colorado counties are provider-shortage areas for their entire population
The Colorado Challenge
Real challenges. Specific work.
Colorado spends nearly $3 billion a year on behavioral health. People who need reliable care still struggle to access it. Funding is fragmented. Coordination across providers, payers, and advocates is rare. Equitable access remains out of reach for too many Coloradans. None of this is hopeless — these are specific challenges with specific solutions, achievable when the right organizations work the problem together.
Policy Priorities
What we're working on.
-
A system accountable to outcomes — success measured by whether people get what they need, not market share or revenue.
- Reward effective care, not program survival
- Consolidate duplicative programs and funding
- Build reforms that outlast any administration
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Integration means looking beyond a diagnosis to the whole person — the relationship between mental health and physical wellness, the role of social support, the stigma that keeps people from seeking care at all.
- Align payment across physical and behavioral health
- Use the RAEs, BHASOs, and commercial insurance
- Apply managed-care principles where they help
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The system should work for the person seeking care, regardless of their circumstance.
- Reach rural and underserved communities
- Expand language-accessible, culturally-specific care
- Lower the barriers and stigma to seeking care
The Breadth at the Table
Not one perspective on policy. The whole field, in conversation.
Most coalitions sit one role. This alliance's room has every kind of voice behavioral health policy actually contains.
Frontline care
Providers
Behavioral health organizations running clinics, community programs, and rural services. Ground-truth on what reform actually changes for the people doing the work.
Financing & infrastructure
Payers & Network Administrators
Regional Accountable Entities, Medicaid behavioral health payers, ASOs, and BHASOs. What rate, network, and managed-care choices actually do to access and quality — and the people who know where the system breaks.
Voice of the person
Advocates
Advocacy organizations grounded in lived experience and civil-rights work. Keeping the room honest about whose life is on the line.
About the Alliance
How a different kind of coalition happens.
Founded by Daniel Darting and Camille Harding alongside Colorado member organizations, the People First Alliance exists to build the dependable policy Colorado needs. Cross-sector by design. Person-centered by intent. Transparent about the work.
Read the full storyStay Informed
An occasional briefing, by email.
Updates on what we're working on, what's moving in Colorado behavioral health policy, and what we're paying attention to. No more than once a month.
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