We need your help.

As many of you know, Healthy Teen Network is part of the Baltimore City Health Department’s HHS/OAH Tier 1B U Choose Evidence-Based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. We have been supporting the implementation of evidence-based programs in Baltimore City Public Schools and Title X clinics throughout the city. As June 30^th, the end of the project year, approached, we really focused on sustainability of implementing Seventeen Days in the clinics.

After talking with each clinic about sustainability, they developed sustainability plans using an adapted template from OAH’s Building Sustainable Programs: The Resource Guide (Factor 1: Create an Action Strategy, Activity 3: Developing a Sustainability Plan, p.25).

One thing that really stuck with me during this planning process was that unless clinics absorb the cost of the health educators facilitating sex education, shift their role within the clinic, or fall back on the usual funding sources (i.e., grant money), the clinic health educators are out of a job when the project ends…and of course, the provision of sex education, in this case, Seventeen Days, cannot continue. Young people miss out on this critical connection between services and education.

Yes, I assume that the health educators were told that theirs was a grant-funded position when they were hired and no guarantees could be made of future employment with the organization after the project ended.

When I was talking with Dr. Arik Marcell who heads up the implementation of Seventeen Days at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center Harriet Lane Clinic in Baltimore, he was at a loss for healthcare strategies to sustain health educator staff besides grant funding. He is aware of mechanisms through Medicare to bill and be reimbursed for health educator staff time as part of annual well visits that might allow for the creation of a sustainable business plan to support health educator positions, but he is not aware of similar mechanisms through Medicaid to do so. He suggested Healthy Teen Network survey our members to see what they are doing to sustain programs in clinics that serve adolescents and young adults.

So, this is how you can help us. Take a few minutes to tell us how you are sustaining health educators and/or sex ed programs—or any health education program—in your clinic by responding to this super-quick survey. We will share the results in a follow-up post. Thank you!!