Family planning partnerships: Equalizing access to information

Background: Health care initiatives have stressed the importance of going beyond traditional health promotion strategies to address hard to reach populations. These populations often experience higher levels of poor outcomes including adolescent and unplanned pregnancies. Improvement in access to information can be a form of reproductive justice if outcomes are improved among those groups experiencing health disparities. The California Family Health Council (CFHC) has created two programs seeking to increase knowledge about reproductive health services through partnerships with organizations serving high need/risk groups and faith-based community organizations.

Methods: Community organizations serving diverse populations received CFHC funding for comprehensive reproductive health education, counseling and referrals in partnership with a local Title X family planning clinic. Grantees provided a variety of programs including: training community health educators, health education workshops for teens, media campaigns, and counseling services. Program evaluation included a three question qualitative partnership assessment and a uniform set of core pre/post reproductive health related questions.

Results: Five years of program implementation experience provided opportunities for learning about partnership building with diverse community organizations. Community partnerships, as an outreach strategy, are highly valued among both health agencies and the community based organizations. Knowledge of reproductive health services, clinic locations, as well as birth control methods and effective ways to prevent STIs increased among program participants.

Conclusions: The development of mutually enhancing partnerships between community organizations and family planning clinics is an effective way to increase reproductive health knowledge and awareness of services among populations affected by reproductive health disparities.