In 1998, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation launched a nationwide initiative called "Community Voices: Healthcare for the Underserved." Miami was one of thirteen sites. During the first five years, Community Voices Miami (CVM) has focused on convening the community's health care providers, consumers, and stakeholders to work together toward one common goal: improving access to health care for the uninsured and underserved people of Miami-Dade County.

In June 2003, Community Voices Miami, with renewed support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, moved to the Collins Center for Public Policy, Inc. Joining the Collins Center, marks the beginning of a new phase for CVM. With its strong presence in Tallahassee and Miami, the Collins Center is uniquely positioned to inform health policy at a local and state level, allowing CVM to link its work with state wide and national efforts to improve access to healthcare. In addition, in this new phase, the Kellogg foundation has charged CVM to examine health policy in the areas of case management, behavioral health, community health workers, men’s health and oral health as a means through which to increase access to healthcare for the uninsured and underserved in Miami-Dade. However, this new phase is only a continuation of our five-year-old efforts to achieve our goal. Therefore, to ensure that we continue the efforts of the previous phases, CVM is also continuing its work in the areas of school based health, and continues to convene the Multi-Agency Consortium. The Multi-Agency Consortium (MAC), consisting of consumers, providers, community groups, and other stakeholders in the system, has served as the "engine" responsible for developing recommendations to improve the health care delivery system in Miami-Dade County through the first phases of the project. Their work helped to create the Miami Action Plan. As CVM moves further into this new phase the MAC is also shifting its focus and will help guide our work on the policy targets.

We invite you to learn more about the Community Voices Miami initiative by navigating this website, and encourage you to contact us to share any thoughts, research, articles, initiatives that can help us achieve our goal.