Teen Pregnancy Help

The Title X Family Planning Program has been around for over 40 years and plays a huge role in helping families get access to family planning resources as well as preventive health care for millions of low-income or uninsured families throughout the United States.

Enacted in 1970, the Title X Family Planning Program is part of the Public Health Service Act and designed as a federal grant program to assist individuals and families with comprehensive family planning as well as with preventive health services. For examples, individuals and families are given access to contraceptive services, supplies and other information to those families in need. The priority for these kinds of preventive services are given to low-income persons or families. The Title X Family Planning Program is currently the only federal grant program that is geared toward providing families with preventive medical assistance  in terms of family planning care. 

These types of programs are most noted and recognized as health care clinics like Planned Parenthood, although in some areas they are under other names including fait-based organizations as well as public and private non-profit agencies. Through the Office of Population Affairs website, you can search for the nearest Title X health care location. Most major cities will have at least one or most of these facilities. These 4,500 locations provide over 5 million of men and women with preventive health care and family planning assistance each year. 

Title X Family Planning Program Assistance:

The Title X Family Planning clinics located throughout the United States offer discounted or free services to men and women when it comes to a variety of family planning services including pap smears. mammograms, STD testing, HIV testing, pregnancy testing, birth control, Plan B and overall wellness checks for women.  For those with low income or no access to health care and insurance, using a facility's services like Planned Parenthood or another Title X Family Planning center, is often the only way to get contraception, birth control, wellness checks or STD/HIV testing. Many times these tests are free as well as free wellness checks. However, because these are non-profit organizations, they rely largely on donations and partial pay from patients in order to pay to operate the facility. 

It is also important to note that while many of these clinics do offer abortion solutions to pregnant women, the woman has to come up with the money to pay for it herself. The facility does not pay for the service or offer it for free because Title X funds are prohibited from being used in programs where abortion is used toward family planning. 

The top three objectives set forth by Title X Family Planning include:

1. Training and preparedness for family clinic employees through 10 training programs as well as three national training programs that focus on specific clinic training for both men and women as well as training for family planning services.
2. The facilities are also in charge of collecting data for family planning research that is intended to assist in improving the delivery of these family planning services.
3. Lastly, information dissemination and community-based activities are sponsored by Title X facilities to help educate and encourage low-income families and individuals into getting prepared for family planning and overall health. 

Certain educational opportunities are given to the individuals and families that utilize the services at Title X facilities including how to use contraception correctly, how to space children in a family as well as how to have a healthy family, pregnancy and birth. These are many educational and counseling activities that are available along with the medical services for family planning in Title X clinics throughout the United States. 

Sources: plannedparenthood.org, hhs.gov