Who we are & what we do
About CAHN
Who we are & what we do
CAHN is a Black-led organisation set up to address the wider social determinants to eradicate health disparities for Caribbean & African people in the United Kingdom. We work with the Black community and cross-sector organisations to build community resilience, relationships, and a social movement to improve health outcomes for Black people.
Our Vision
CAHN’s vision is to eradicate health disparities for Caribbean & African people within a generation.
Our Mission
Our mission is to lead strategic engagement to change the unhelpful practices of service providers, commissioners, and member organisations to influence policy and practice to ensure racial and social justice is a focus of health and other public sector service reforms in the UK.
Core Values
The Caribbean & African Health Network is founded on a number of key principles and values which enables us to conduct our activities with integrity respect, openness transparency and within a framework of good governance.
As an organisation we adopt an intersectional approach to engagement and are committed to working in an inclusive, creative, and responsive manner with communities and organisations irrespective of socio-economic status, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, age, and physical or mental ability.
We work in a collaborative way to coproduce and codesign meaningful actions that bring about equity, justice and fairness to those that are underserved and marginalised in the community. Our engagement across stakeholders is purposeful and shared in a way that enables learning and best practices to make our society a better place to live for everyone.
As an organisation, CAHN...
Leads
we lead strategic engagement articulating the needs of the community with an evidence base. We galvanise the community to respond to consultations and influence policy and practice; challenging the myth that we are hard-to-reach.
Enhances
we work with community groups and member organisations to reduce duplication and maximise their impact; making them more effective in achieving their objectives.
Educates
we raise awareness about prevention, early detection, effective self-care and self-management. We provide commissioners and service providers with insight and cultural awareness of the Black community.
Supports
we support a range of initiatives that brings communities together and builds community resilience. We broker collaborations among organisations to compliment and promote partnership working. We work with member organisations to strengthen their governance and support sustainability planning.
Advocates
we ensure the voice of the Black community is represented at decision-making tables. Our volunteers from a range of specialities support the most vulnerable in our community.
Our Core Objectives ...
- To work collaboratively with Caribbean and African faith and community organisations to strengthen their structures and systems so that they can be responsive to meet the health and wellbeing needs of the community.
- To build partnerships across sectors and to be the point of contact between communities, voluntary sector members and commissioning agencies.
- To engage in continuous consultation, planning and evaluation to provide solutions to persistent health inequalities and act as a direct point of contact with commissioners.
- To champion the work of the Caribbean and African community and to promote its assets, efficiencies and achievements
Health Priorities
The evidence base identifies five key areas of work that we need to work with our community and stakeholders to address. Within all of these health programmes there are distinct needs that we need to tailor health prevention initiatives to affect change and improve outcomes.
All of the health programmes take in account intersectionality within the protected characteristics to deliver impact across generational groups. Much of our work is undertaken in partnership with Trusts, clinical commissioning groups, local authorities, faith communities and Voluntary sector organisations. This work seeks to enable a better experience and outcome for people of Caribbean or African descent locally and nationally.
