Breaking Down Barriers SINCE 2008
Championing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Breaking Down Barriers (BDB) is a network of over 70 organisations (January 2025), working together to improve the lives of families from diverse and marginalised communities, who are affected by genetic conditions so they have equal access to health services.
There is no such thing as hard to reach communities, only services and organisations that can be difficult for people from diverse communities to access.
Addressing health inequalities is at the centre of what BDB do: finding ways that health services can be shaped to become inclusive and accessible, and working with families to encourage and support them to access those services. The Breaking Down Barriers network of organisations, working at a grassroots level, is sharing good practice and exploring new ideas to help educate, empower, and provide an evidence base to promote equity of access to mainstream health services.
The Covid 19 crisis has now starkly highlighted health inequalities in the UK and these are also one of the focuses of the Black Lives Matter movement. The Breaking Down Barriers network is well placed and committed to contribute our expertise and support to those who are addressing the same challenges and with whom we share a mission.
Health inequalities are not inevitable and can be significantly reduced… avoidable health inequalities are unfair and putting them right is a matter of social justice.’
(The Health Foundation, 2020, (online) https://www.health.org.uk/publications/reports/the-marmot-review-10-years-on, accessed on 10.06.20)
Hear from Kerry about the Breaking Down Barriers project.
Collaboration is the Key to:
- Supporting the BDB Network through Training, Development and Collaboration
- Delivering a Community Outreach project offering ‘Family, Genes and Health’ Workshops within diverse and marginalised communities
- Involving people with Lived Experience through ‘Experts by Experience’ Patient and Public Involvement Advisory Groups
- Collaborating through Partnerships and Alliances -Influencing Research, UK Policy and Service Development
‘The impact of this project and the support, training and encouragement from BDB, has been significant for the organisation as a whole’
This short animation gives an overview of the work of BDB and why it is so vitally important.
You can find out more about the work of Breaking Down Barriers on the website:
https://breaking-down-barriers.org.uk/