What’s Our Mission?

by Heather Cessna, BIDS Executive Director

If you have ever visited our Board of Indigents’ Defense Services website, you may have noticed our agency’s historical mission statement in the middle of the home page. It reads:  

The statutory mission of the State Board of Indigents' Defense Services is to provide, supervise and coordinate, in the most efficient and economical manner possible, the constitutionally and statutorily required counsel and related service for each indigent person accused of a felony and for such other indigent persons as prescribed by law.

While technically correct – that is our statutory mandate under K.S.A. 22-4522(a) – those words struck our new Training Director, Meryl Carver-Allmond, as less than inspiring, given the vitally important and life-altering work that we do for our clients.  So when she came to me with the idea of rethinking our mission statement, I was thrilled to give her and the wonderfully thoughtful representatives of many of your offices who are serving members of the BIDS Well-Being Committee the green light to brainstorm and ultimately choose a new forward-facing mission statement for our agency. 

After several rounds of brainstorming, drafting, and revision, the BIDS Well-Being Committee settled on a new proposed mission statement for our agency. In December, Meryl presented the Well-Being Committee’s work to our Board members and our Board members voted unanimously in favor of adopting the committee’s proposal.

Our technical statutory mandate under K.S.A. 22-4522(a) still remains the same, but our new forward-facing agency mission statement now better reflects the kind of client-centered representation we strive to provide. So, without further ado, here is the newly Board adopted mission of BIDS:

Advocacy. Dignity. Justice.

Our mission is to fulfill the constitutional promise of a zealous defense by providing our clients with team-based advocacy

that champions their human dignity and achieves just outcomes on their behalf. 

I love this because I think it distills the essence of the meaningful work that we do in a way that clearly places the kind of service our client’s deserve at the forefront.  It inspires me to continue to do great work on behalf of our agency and our clients, and I hope it inspires all of you as well. 

Many of you may have office specific mission statements as well.  If you do, please reach out and share those with us by emailing Meryl at mcarver@sbids.org. We would love to know what your offices have put together! 

Thank you so much to Meryl and the BIDS Well-Being Committee for their hard work rethinking our agency mission and to the BIDS Board for adopting that vision as we move into a new era of public defense in Kansas!