Essential Access Health (Essential Access) champions and promotes high-quality sexual and reproductive health care for all. For over 50 years, Essential Access has successfully partnered with the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) to promote and expand access to equitable, affordable, high-quality, and client-centered family planning services for people with low-incomes. Since 2016, Essential Access has been meeting with key health care and family planning organizations throughout Hawai¿i to identify gaps in access to family planning services and how to best address them. The requested funding will be used to develop and deepen relationships with health care providers in Hawai¿i and to re-establish a Title X provider network in the state, to ensure access for the low-income women, men, and teens that depend on these providers each year for their sexual and reproductive healthcare.
Essential Access requests $1,500,000 for the fifteen-month project period to re-establish a Title X provider network in Hawai¿i, a state that currently has no Title X funding and limited family planning infrastructure to support the delivery of family planning and related health services to 14,625 low-income individuals and families in the state of Hawai¿i. The goal of Essential Access is to maximize the use of Title X funds, equitably and efficiently, allocating funds to a diverse mix of subrecipient organizations across the state.
Essential Access has developed a comprehensive Work Plan that outlines goals and objectives to ensure the provision of quality, equitable, and client-centric voluntary family planning and preventive health services including a broad range of acceptable and effective family planning methods and services to assist residents of Hawai¿i with low incomes in preventing and achieving pregnancy. The goals of the project are to 1) Reintroduce and rebuild a robust Title X provider network to expand access to equitable, affordable, client-centered, high-quality family planning services in Hawai¿i; 2) Advance health equity through HI’s Title X family planning program by removing barriers to access, improving the quality of services, and providing client-centered services; and 3) Provide training, technical assistance, and resources to ensure access to equitable, affordable, client-centered, high-quality family planning services that comply with Title X statute, regulations, legislative mandates, and program guidance and address OPA program priorities.
Upon award, Essential Access will leverage over 50 years of Title X leadership to immediately rebuild a robust and sustainable Title X provider network in Hawai¿i to meet the dire need for family planning services across the state. With Hawai‘i’s robust Title X provider network and a broad range of community-based partners, will make rapid use of Title X funding to advance program priorities, restore critical resources, and expand access to equitable, affordable, client-centered, and high-quality family planning services to individuals with low-incomes, adolescents, Native Hawaiians, people living in underserved rural regions, and individuals representing the rich cultural diversity across the state.