Community Advisory Board

PICCK’s Community Advisory Board (CAB)

PICCK’s Community Advisory Board (CAB) was created to strengthen the program’s activities by providing guidance to the core team, proposing innovative avenues for addressing gaps in contraceptive care and access, ensuring sustainability, and amplifying the diverse voices of Massachusetts residents receiving such care. PICCK recognized that patients and community stakeholders hold unique expertise in their own lives and needs. This expertise supplemented the clinical, programmatic, and research expertise of our core team. Specifically, the CAB provided input on the following issues: 

1. Highlighted issues critical to patients and community that may not have occurred to project leads or collaborating hospitals; 
2. Assessed whether specific components of intervention activities may have unintended consequences for patients or the community (e.g., sowing distrust); 
3. Answered targeted questions that arose during implementation and which required the CAB’s unique expertise; 
4. Suggested additional sources of community expertise for particular hospitals and their communities (e.g. local religious leaders, community organizations);
5. Provided input on additional information-gathering, research, or evaluation activities (e.g., what domains should be covered in needs assessments, patient surveys);
6. Participated in additional opportunities to help facilitate hospital trainings with clinical consultants

Over the course of PICCK’s five years, 24 community members from across Massachusetts participated in the CAB. In addition to attending and providing valuable feedback at regular meetings, 10 CAB members presented as part of 17 training presentations, include during shared-decision-making programming at partner sites, during our Annual Meetings, and in our monthly webinar series. CAB members also played integral roles in the development of PICCK’s Decision Aid and Method Information Sheets, What’s Important: A Patient-Centered Approach to Contraceptive Counseling e-learning course, Media Inclusivity Service, and COVID-19 response. Multiple CAB members will also serve as co-authors on forthcoming publications.

We are immensely grateful for the contributions of PICCK’s CAB and are excited to share lessons learned with clinicians, researchers, public health practitioners, and sexual and reproductive health professionals in the future!