About Us

As a statewide nonprofit, the Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition (CCIC) works with health care providers, public health departments, businesses, policy makers, and community organizations to ensure children get the vaccines they need to keep Colorado’s kids healthy.

Our Mission: The Colorado Children's Immunization Coalition (CCIC) promotes improved access, delivery, and demand for children’s vaccinations to keep Colorado healthy.

By focusing on four programming areas – coalition building, community outreach, provider education and public policy - the Coalition leverages the strengths and resources of our members and community partners to reduce duplication and maximize the effectiveness of our efforts.

Becoming a CCIC member is free and easy.

 Program Areas:

Coalition Building

• CCIC’s membership is 250 individual members strong representing over 100 organizations across Colorado
• The Coalition meetings are held bi-monthly and offer a forum for members to share information, present issues, ask for feedback, and discuss collaborative opportunities.
• Outside of Coalition meetings, members participate in committees on educational programming, evaluation of our target markets, and technical issues related to vaccines.
• In collaboration with CDPHE, CCIC coordinates the writing and distribution of the Sharp Shooter newsletter which focuses on news/updates on immunizations and the Vaccines For Children program monthly bulletin.
• The Coalition also creates and distributes laminated Immunization Palm Cards with technical guidance and references distributed to physician and public health offices free of charge.

Community Outreach

• CCIC offers the public credible and timely information on vaccination through educational materials and outreach campaigns. Our Parent Outreach Brochure is targeted to parents of young children, providing information on the importance of vaccination and listing resources for low-cost or free vaccines.
• CCIC offers communications strategy assistance to its membership offering expertise in media relations, social media strategy, event planning, and general communications and marketing ideas.
• We also give our members a voice in the public forum through media relations and extensive social media outreach.

Provider Education

• Bringing learning opportunities to its members is an important part of CCIC’s mission. CCIC offers in-person and web-based seminars targeted towards family physicians, pediatricians, nurses, medical assistants, and public health professionals who are involved in the access and delivery of vaccines. The topics offered include:
  • Vaccine updates, and immunization recommendations
  • How to talk to parents about vaccines,
  • New vaccine research
  • Parental vaccine refusal
  • The vaccine-autism myth
  • Immunization storage, handling, and administration
• In addition to hosting presentations in the community, CCIC partners with our members to organize special educational events tailored to a community’s specific needs.

Public Policy

• Being a member of CCIC means being part of a powerful group of child health advocates. The recent successes CCIC has experienced in policy are due to the combined efforts of the members of our Public Policy committee which includes representatives from CDPHE, local health departments, The Children’s Hospital, the American Academy of Pediatrics Colorado Chapter, the Colorado Academy of Family Physicians and the Colorado Children’s Campaign.
• CCIC’s leaders are actively involved in the Vaccine Advisory Committee for Colorado (VACC) which was created through CCIC’s 2007 legislative success and is co-chaired by Lieutenant Governor O’Brien and CCIC Board President Dr. Robert Brayden. VACC engages experts and public health agencies to address childhood immunization issues through regulatory means by focusing on specific barriers to immunization in the community and making recommendations to Governor Ritter on what funding strategies and activities can overcome these barriers.

Fundraising

• CCIC maintains diverse sources of funding, with strong funding relationships with the State and private foundation community. CCIC does not accept funding from vaccine manufacturers or distributors.
• CCIC celebrates its membership at its annual fundraiser SOUP! (Shots Offer Unrivaled Protection) in April. In addition to networking and celebrating, guests sample a variety of soups from Denver’s premier restaurants and vote for the Best Soup and Most Creative Soup of the year.