Ideas to Impact — Faster. Together.
CAB Toolkit: Implementation
Resources on this page
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Logistics
Clarifying operating procedures (what a CAB does) and operating principles (how it gets those things done).
Studies to reference about developing operating principles
Integrating members’ and the community’s values to inform CAB procedures can generate trust. These values are often called “Guiding Principles” and may be co-developed as a trust-building tool.
Potential Guiding Principles
Sample Studies
Decide on structured vs. free-form
Principles to be revisited and amended as necessary
Training and onboarding
Work with your institution to ascertain if community partners are exempt from research requirements, such as CITI training, or if there are suitable substitutes, such as CIRTification or Research Ethics 4 All.
Leadership
Creating an equitable leadership structure helps to alleviate mistrust and ensure that the CAB’s work is grounded in community needs AND increase participation, satisfaction, and consensus-building.
*Be sure to consider backgrounds (academic, social, cultural) of members*
Decision-making
Do CABs inform decisions, determine outcomes, and/or have final say?
Transparency about the role of members in decision-making strengthens engagement and sustainability. You can opt for a hybrid approach as long as it’s clear to members, but you can also opt for a “select few” approach where 1-2 leaders in the CAB are selected to represent the CAB in decision-making. This can be a challenge to navigate, can put pressure on the selected leaders and lead to frustration.
Leadership, power, and decision-making examples
Honorarium
Compensating CAB members for their time and expertise is standard practice. Your budget will help determine the amount of the honoraria, but $25/hour is considered standard practice. Depending on the needs of your community, you may need to budget for childcare, food, transportation, and infrastructure for hybrid meetings. Your budgeting should reflect steps to address common barriers for your members.
Your institution may have rules and standards around how to provide renumeration. For example, you may need to provide the payment through ClinCards, and you may need to collect tax information or have participants complete W9 forms. It is recommended to use secure survey platforms to collect this information and to have these ready before you start recruitment. It is also recommended information about requirements (e.g., providing a tax identification number) be shared upfront. Some community partners may prefer an alternative form of compensation (e.g., payment to/through organization, donation to a charity, vendor check) that does not require sharing personal information. See Carter Edwards et al. (2021) for more information about institutional barriers.