Community Voices Miami is one of 13-sites nation-wide participating in the W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded initiative to improve access to health care for the underserved and uninsured. The Miami project is a community-driven partnership led by Camillus House, RAND and United Way of Miami-Dade. As the first step in our 5-year project we conducted a countywide community engagement effort to elicit concerns about health care access issues. Before engaging the community, we identified best practices for successful community engagement including the need to partner with community organizations to develop and assure a capacity for change and to respect and acknowledge the diversity in the community. Next, in collaboration with over 65 community-based organizations, we co-sponsored 21 dialogues across the County. Over 600 persons reflecting the diversity of the community attended the dialogues. Common concerns included: difficulty in obtaining preventive and primary care, inaccessibility of the safety net system due to poor geographic access and immigration documentation concerns, and long appointment wait times. The project team is working with local providers and policymakers to address these issues. Furthermore, we re-convened dialogue participants to share information from the dialogues highlighting common themes and suggesting solutions compatible across diverse groups. Working with the entire community has facilitated building social connections among and between various disenfranchised groups, institutions, policymakers, and other stakeholders and has enhanced the communities' social capital and capacity to affect change. We conclude with lessons learned in our approach that may be applied to other communities.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session participants will be able to:
Keywords: Community Participation, Community Health Planning
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: United Way of Miami-Dade