Stronger and Better, Together

The Canadian Association of Community Health Centres (CACHC) supports and represents Community Health Centres (CHCs) across Canada. CACHC provides policy and advocacy leadership, joint projects and initiatives, knowledge-exchange activities, and a wide range of other membership benefits and supports to CHCs. Our work is currently guided by our 2020 – 2025 Strategic Plan.

CACHC helps our members reach a wider audience and increases visibility of their important work, both nationally nd internationally. Through our communications and storytelling initiatives — blogs, our Community Matters podcast, social media channels, and more — we are constantly amplifying the work of our members with the general public, decision-makers and potential funders. Through our national Community Health Centre jobs board we help CHCs reach a national audience of job seekers with interests and values that align with CHCs. And, our leadership in the International Federation of Community Health Centres (IFCHC) connects CHCs to a global network.

At CACHC, we recognize that our members face constant pressures in meeting the diverse needs of the communities they serve. Since 2019, CACHC has secured and distributed more than $2,000,000 in small project grants to our members across Canada, supporting community-based services and initiatives. We continue to explore ways to increase this support. In addition, CACHC is working hard to enable day-to-day cost savings for our members through our Value in Purchasing (VIP) Program. Through the VIP Program, our member CHCs have access to significant savings on a wide range of medical and office supplies, vendor services, and other services and supplies.

A key part of our work as an association is connecting our members with each other to learn, share resources, and provide mutual support. Our association supports frequent requests from our members seeking to connect with other CHCs for information and tools on a wide range of operational, governance, and policy/advocacy issues. In addition to this day to day support role, CACHC leads a number of more intensive national knowledge exchange and research efforts. Through our online CHCommunity, staff from CHCs can make and maintain meaningful connections. Through CACHC’s National Resource Hub for CHCs, launched in 2021, CHCs can access and share a wide range of relevant tools. In addition, CACHC’s undertakes a significant number of research and joint project activities with our members.

Since CACHC’s launch in 2012, the association has been active in numerous policy and advocacy areas at the federal level, with and on behalf of our members. During federal elections in 2015, 2019 and 2021 we have worked actively with our members to advocate on core priorities with federal political parties and local candidates. While the emphasis of policy development and advocacy is on federal, provincial, and municipal support for CHCs, the association continues to be active in pushing for a wide range of issues like national pharmacare, national dental care, and other federal policy issues aimed as reducing social and health inequities. We cooperate on federal/provincial policy issues with provincial CHC association where they exist, currently in British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Ontario.