The past year was a difficult one, with a continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic and an escalation of challenges to reproductive rights.
Beyond continuing to provide much-needed reproductive health care across six states, the organization was also able to forge ahead and expand care. This included expanding programs and increasing preparedness for what lies ahead, as well as achieving excellence in existing programs.
At the start of the year, the organization formally became Planned Parenthood Great Northwest Hawai’i Indiana Kentucky, merging Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawai’ian Islands with Planned Parenthood Indiana and Kentucky. The merger was done in pursuit of a long-term sustainable strategy to keep access to care in the places it is needed most.
In February, the affiliate launched an in-house call center for patients in Indiana and Kentucky. Because the call center creates a more knowledgeable and more personalized experience for patients — who are able to speak directly to a Planned Parenthood employee when setting their appointment — providers at health centers can focus on their relationship with the patient and the patient's individual needs. The call center is located in Indianapolis.
This past September, Gender Affirming Hormone Care launched in Indiana and Kentucky. This expansion of care added thousands of patients who might otherwise have to travel hundreds of miles to receive care. Every staff member in Indiana and Kentucky received gender affirming training. All of Planned Parenthood’s reproductive health care services, including gender affirming hormone care, are available to transgender, gender non-conforming, and intersex patients across the six states.
The Planned Parenthood education team was recognized for the LiFT program, which stands for Linking Families and Teens. LiFT focuses on improving and increasing communication between youth and their supportive adults, increasing family connectedness and increasing youth self-efficacy. This creates a foundation to positive outcomes, one of which is reducing unplanned pregnancies. The course covers a variety of topics ranging from condom use to communication skills.
LiFT was recently featured in the Sept 2021 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, which stated: “LiFT achieved lasting effects on increasing parent-child communication and youth self-efficacy to prevent unwanted pregnancies a full year following the brief, family-focused workshop. LiFT’s impact on pregnancy was significant at three months and trended in the right direction at 12 months.”
PPGNHAIK launched the Storytelling Cohorts volunteer program, which is intended to act as a speaker’s bureau and will train groups of volunteers together at the same time. With the Storytelling Cohort program, the organization sheds the logistical challenges of finding and prepping volunteers on short notice, while prioritizing the needs of those volunteers.
Two of the organization’s clinical staff members received Beacon Awards — Clinician Margo Cohen for her diligence in steadfastly self-quarantining in order to be able to participate in inter-island travel to provide care in Hawaiʻi, and Area Services Director Lolita Kinsey-Brown for her crisis management in preventing COVID-19 exposure in an Indiana health center. Thanks to both of these capable women, many more Planned Parenthood patients were able to receive reproductive health care during a pandemic.
The Anchorage Teen Council placed runner-up in the Spirit of Youth award for their outreach and education work in the LGBTQ community. The award was given at the Spirit of Youth virtual awards ceremony in May, and the Anchorage Teen Council received a $500 reward to use towards their programming.
Donors to Planned Parenthood continue to make their championship of reproductive health care known in health centers across six states. Because health centers are a common point of contact for Planned Parenthood supporters (who are often also patients), donations have been rolling in throughout the year, which health center staff are trained to receive, and are very grateful for.
It’s because of you that Planned Parenthood has been able to keep going and accomplish more in the past year. The organization has made its response to the pandemic a top concern – the work this has required has cost more and required more from staff. Working to reduce the risk of transmission at our health centers and adapting to the needs of our communities, telehealth has been expanded in all six states, and the protocols enacted last year to protect patients and staff have been continued.
Because of you, PPGNHAIK was able to serve over 120,000 patients in 2021. Without you, providing this much care to this many people simply would not be possible.
Looking ahead, the pending challenges to Roe v. Wade mean that things are about to get even harder in 2022. The fight for reproductive health care will need your support more than ever.
Thank you for being such an important part of the Planned Parenthood movement during these challenging times. You are the reason this care exists, and it simply would not be there without your support. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones, prepare for the challenges ahead, and consider a gift to make more care possible in the new year.
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