OCD is often missed in the Black community because it can be hard to recognize if you're not sure what you're looking for. Poor recognition in service spaces also slows getting any diagnosis OR the right diagnosis. It also limits access to the right support and leaves individuals and families trying to make sense of something without clear direction. These experiences don’t just happen in therapy or treatment spaces—they also happen in everyday conversations, in families, and in communities, and this has shaped how people understand OCD in our Black community.

For this reason, the Black & OCD (BOCD) Think Tank Initiative was created. The BOCD Think Tank is a curated space for knowledge sharing in the Black community, bringing together individuals with lived experience, providers, families, loved ones, and community members for real conversations and information gathering about the Black & OCD experience.

The BOCD Think Tank envisions a world where Black people impacted by obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and their communities, have equitable access to culturally responsive education, treatment, and advocacy—affirming the Black & OCD experience in every space where awareness, care, research, and dialogue about community impact occur.

The Community Engagement Framework represents a structured and intentional knowledge gathering approach, centering the Black and OCD experience across multiple layers of influence—lived experience, service settings, families and loved ones, and the larger Black community.

This framework is designed with intention, recognizing that our understanding of OCD in the Black community cannot come from a single source. Authentic dialogue, collective reflection, and culturally-grounded engagement will occur in phases. This phased engagement model builds our knowledge-base by ensuring that no single perspective defines the work. Instead, the BOCD Think Tank is designed to hold multiple truths at once —translating lived experience, provider insight, and community knowledge into meaningful, responsive action.

Through this framework, we aim to:

• Elevate culturally grounded knowledge
• Identify gaps in care and access
• Develop responsive training and outreach strategies
• Build sustainable partnerships across systems and communities

At the core of this work are Community Conversations—intentional, dialogue-based gatherings organized by group and hosted in phases. The Community Conversations are designed to hold space for judgment-free discussions about experiences, perspectives, and insights. Individuals with lived experience, service providers, families, loved ones, and community members are provided their own space to convene and converse.

Community Conversations are NOT:

• presentations
• psychoeduction groups
• lectures
• traninings
• traditional support groups

Community Conversations are SAFE SPACES for:

• listening
• sharing
• reflecting
• learning from one another

Through these conversations, the BOCD Think Tank will work to:

• Amplify Black voices that are often overlooked in the OCD literature
• Identify real barriers to knowledge, resources, care, and support
• Depict how OCD is experienced within the Black cultural context
• Build connections, partnerships, and relationships that support ongoing engagement
• Inform training, outreach, and future initiatives in support of culturally-responsive practices
• Ensure that future research involving Black Americans with OCD remains community-informed