Preparing the Health Workforce of the Future: Community Voices Service-L

The Community Voices: HealthCare for the Underserved program is a multi-year initiative funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The program is designed to improve access to quality health care for the under and uninsured. In addition, the program is designed to give a voice to communities regarding health care access and quality in terms of national policy decision making. A total of thirteen communities form the foundation of Community Voices, working to identify and implement best practices in meeting the needs of those who either do not receive health services and/or receive inadequate health services. These communities are: Alameda County/Oakland, California; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Baltimore, Maryland; California Rural Indian Health Board (29 tribes); Denver, Colorado; Detroit, Michigan; El Paso, Texas; Ingham County-Lansing, Michigan; Miami, Florida; North Carolina; Northern Manhattan, New York; Washington, DC; and West Virginia.

Although not designed as a "health workforce initiative" or with an explicit academic component, the Kellogg Community Voices program – as a national initiative, and as individual programs at the community level-can make a significant contribution to understanding the health workforce challenges facing communities, advancing recommendations for change, and implementing solutions.

With their emphasis on community-based preventive care, community partnerships and policy change, Community Voices grantees are an ideal setting for service-learning partnerships, in which college and university students provide community service combined with reflection and explicit learning objectives as part of their formal education.

With support from the WK Kellogg Foundation, CCPH will begin an effort to facilitate and strengthen community-campus partnerships between CV grantees and nearby colleges and universities, and to articulate the role of communities in achieving a competent, diverse health workforce.

This effort is exciting and unique in that communities seek to engage colleges and universities as partners in their efforts to meet community needs, improve health and ensure a competent, diverse workforce. Typically, higher educational institutions "reach out" to the community to fulfill their academic missions of teaching, research and service. Thus, this effort promises to generate new knowledge about community-driven service-learning partnerships that can inform practice across the country.

Community-Campus Partnerships for Health is a nonprofit organization that promotes health through partnerships between communities and higher educational institutions. In just five years, CCPH has grown to a network of over 1000 communities and campuses that are collaborating to promote health through service-learning, community-based research, community service and other partnership strategies. These partnerships are powerful tools for improving health professional education, civic responsibility and the overall health of communities.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 “to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations.” Its programmatic activities center around the common vision of a world in which each person has a sense of worth; accepts responsibility for self family, community, and societal well-being; and has the capacity to be productive, and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions, and healthy communities.

To achieve the greatest impact, the Foundation targets its grants toward specific areas. These include: health, food systems, and rural development; youth and education; and philanthropy and volunteerism. Within these areas, attention is given to the cross-cutting themes of leadership; information and communication technology; capitalizing on diversity; and social and economic community development. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and the southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

Rachel L. Vaughn
Program Coordinator
(206) 543-8010
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Community-Campus Partnerships for Health is a nonprofit organization that
promotes health through partnerships between communities and educational
institutions. Check out our website at www.ccph.info

Mark your calendar for CCPH's 7th annual conference - April 26-29, 2003 in
San Diego, CA. The conference will feature a symposium jointly planned and
sponsored by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office
of University Partnerships and the Community Outreach Partnership Centers
program. This will present an unprecedented opportunity for advancing
community-campus partnerships that truly span the campus and contribute to
public problem-solving and healthier communities.

CCPH is the Higher Education Senior Program Advisor for the Learn and
Serve America National Service-Learning Clearinghouse. http://www.servicelearning.org

Preparing the Health Workforce of the Future: Community Voices Service-Learning Partnerships

by Rachel Vaughn

17 July 2002 23:43 UTC