“Since 2006, the ACAB has worked to ensure Alabama’s Consumers recognize that, when it comes to their healthcare, their voice has value, they deserve to be a part of the discussion, and that self-advocacy and awareness are critical components to them achieving their best health outcomes.”
Mission
The Mission of the Alabama Consumers Advisory Board (ACAB) is to work with various HIV/AIDS service providers (ASOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), clinics, health departments, academic institutions, and legislative bodies in Alabama to confirm the quality of healthcare while creating more desirable and sustainable social/health outcomes for our constituency.
Goals
The following goals represent our strategic plan for ongoing areas of service.
Goal One
Provide the focus that encourages individuals towards greater self-advocacy, and - when needed - the framework that ensures adequate and appropriate representation in order to enhance preferred treatment outcomes.
Goal Two
Create a programmatic concept which provides an Ombudsman process which will survey feedback from our partners and input to our consumers in an effort to increase access to care.
Goal Three
Seek opportunities whereby the ACAB's Advocacy Goals for personal, professional, and programmatic improvements are realized and recognized.
goal four
Ensure our priorities align with our commitment to the ethics of parity, inclusion, and representation, and that we effectively represent the voiceless, and support those who have been disenfranchised.
History
Long before Community Advisory Boards became the norm that they are today, the Alabama Department of Public Health's (now Alabama Public Health) Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care recognized that there was an urgent need for community members and consumers to be actively engaged in the discussions regarding the Division's programmatic planning.
Very quickly, the structure evolved to ensure that leaders from within this cohort were identified, and allowed the opportunity to develop: both as individuals and as a leadership core. The goal of this leadership development was to ensure that, ultimately, the community/consumer representation would become self-directed, and allowed the autonomy to determine the areas of service that best matched what they perceived as greatest need in the communities they represented.
Thus the Alabama Consumers Advisory Board (ACAB) was launched.
In the years since, the ACAB has partnered with state and local health departments, AIDS service organizations (ASOs), faith-based initiatives (FBIs), and other community based organizations (CBOs) - always with the focus of ensuring that community/consumer presence is visible, and that community/consumer voices are validated.
In recent years, the ACAB has initiated the annual 'Empowerment Conference' - the only exclusively community/consumer produced HIV conference in Alabama.
As we look forward, we remain grateful for our many legacy partners (especially those who have provided programmatic guidance and technical assistance, or invested in our community's development by funding our initiatives), and we sincerely hope that others - "perhaps even YOU" - will join us...join us to preserve community/consumer empowerment...join us as we evaluate new strategies, and implement new solutions!
Remember..."community matters!"