Vision and Values
Vision
To provide Black, African, Asian, South Asian and Caribbean communities in the UK with access to relevant resources, events and therapy services that support and improve their mental and emotional wellbeing.
Membership Core Value Statement
Members of BAATN have signed up to the following values statement:
- All people are worthy of respect
- To acknowledge and value the emotional pain and distress caused by racism, oppression and cultural conditioning, including facing our own internal and external oppression
- To support BAATN’s challenge of psychological therapies that oppress or assert power and control over individuals, groups and communities. (e.g. reparative therapy with Gender and Sexually Diverse communities)
- To support BAATN’s challenge of stereotypes about people of Black, African, South Asian, Caribbean and People of Colour heritages.
“How we do business” Values
All are worthy of Respect
For our work to succeed, we need to start from a place of value and worthiness for all people.
Strength in collaboration
Working together as a community and not in isolation is paramount to our healing.
Compassion is an action
The work of undoing racism is hard. To carry us through, it is important to develop a compassionate heart for ourselves and others.
Listening leads to understanding
Growth does not happen by chance. It comes from compassionately listening to ourselves and ourselves
Courageous heart
We courageously go to new places, knowing we have the support of others
All are worthy of Respect
For our work to succeed, we need to start from a place of value and worthiness for all people.
Strength in collaboration
Working together as a community and not in isolation is paramount to our healing.
Compassion is an action
The work of undoing racism is hard. To carry us through, it is important to develop a compassionate heart for ourselves and others.
Listening leads to understanding
Growth does not happen by chance. It comes from compassionately listening to ourselves and ourselves
Courageous heart
We courageously go to new places, knowing we have the support of others
What we want to accomplish and what we want to change
- To support and encourage people of Black, African, South Asian, Caribbean and People of Colour to engage proactively and consciously in their psychological lives so that they can emerge from the impact of personal, internalised and institutional racism.
- To support, challenge and encourage the counselling and psychotherapy profession to engage proactively and consciously with the impact of racial oppression in training, therapy and supervision.
- To develop resources that assist in countering the particular challenges and struggles that impact people of Black, African, South Asian, Caribbean and People of Colour heritage.
- To be a voice in challenging oppressive behaviours towards people of Black, African, South Asian, Caribbean and People of Colour, including the impact of intersectionality and multiple oppressions.
What we believe and what guides us
- It is evident that there are multiple oppressions and that racism, our key focus, is one of the oppressions that we commit to challenging.
- We recognise that oppression is a major factor contributing to people’s distress; that people cannot be free of distress whilst oppression exists and that oppression forces us into ‘roles’ of ‘oppressor’ or ‘oppressed’.
- We recognise that no one willingly succumbs to oppression.
- We believe that no one is inherently ‘racist’ and that no one would act oppressively if they had not first been hurt, oppressed or culturally conditioned in this way. People do, however, carry racist (oppressor) patterns which are not who they really are.
- We recognise that the individual identities we carry can be used as a reason for being targeted by oppression.
- We acknowledge and celebrate our multiple identities and apply an intersectional approach in all we do.
- We acknowledge that because of racism and oppression, many people can become attached to the role of oppressed (victim) and oppressor (normal/dominant – perpetrator). This is not who we really are.
- We believe attachment to identities, roles that we unconsciously adopt and roles forced upon us by racial and other oppressions are significant barriers to attaining our liberation.
- We all carry multiple identities, which means we have to work to undo the impact of racism and other oppressions upon us. Our liberation and empowerment come from processing the hurts and confusions of oppression.
- All are welcome to join the network. Allies have a critical role to play in creating inclusive environments and challenging racism.
How our members interact with each other and with those outside of the network.
- We acknowledge that, for our work to succeed we start from the perspective that, all people are worthy of respect. We also acknowledge that oppressive attitudes and behaviours must be challenged wherever possible.
- We are committed to resolving conflict and also recognise that conflict is part of challenging internal and external oppression. We are committed to recognising, valuing and paying attention to all emotional and psychological hurts inherent within racial and other oppressions.
- We are committed to countering our own oppressive patterns and cultural conditioning.
- We are committed to challenging all attempts to use psychological therapies to oppress or assert power and control over individuals, groups and communities. (e.g. reparative therapy with GSD communities)
- We are committed to challenging stereotypes about people of Black, African, South Asian, Caribbean and People of Colour heritages.