Leading a Highly-Engaged Community Advisory Board
Adopting community-engaged approaches to our work is one way researchers, consultants, and organizational leaders can become strong partners in communities. Community-engaged approaches require collaborating with groups of people to change, for the better, issues that affect their quality of life.
Through a partnership with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR), AIR is conducting an evaluation of the Neighborhood Opportunity and Accountability Board (NOAB), an innovative diversion program for young people ages 12–18 in Oakland, California.
As part of our endeavor to create an evaluation that fits the context of Oakland, we created a community advisory board (CAB) made up of people with experiences in the justice systems in Oakland to help guide our work in the community. We define a CAB as a group of community members with relevant life experience and/or whose lives have been—or will be—directly impacted by a study, initiative, program, or focal system who may act as co-conspirators, advisors, thought partners, and champions.
Core Phases of a Community Advisory Board
In a set of two briefs, we provide recommendations on how researchers, consultants, and organizational leaders can prepare for and sustain a CAB. The first brief, Laying the Foundation for an Engaged Community Advisory Board, provides guidance on how a team can get ready to implement a CAB. The second brief, Leading a Highly Engaged Community Advisory Board, provides strategies for establishing, facilitating, and maintaining an effective CAB, including responding to obstacles that can impede meaningful member engagement.
