Maintaining Equity, Access, and Quality in a Changing Policy Landscape: 2023 Convenings for Title X Project Leadership

8:00–9:00 am | RHNTC Forecast, Networking, & Breakfast

RHNTC Resources: What's New?

• Session Slides (PPTX 1.25 MB)

Equitable, Affirming and Inclusive Care

• Male Engagement Social Media Toolkit for Title X Family Planning Agencies
• The Need for Accepting and Affirming Care in Title X Settings Video Series
• Support LGBTQ+ Clients with Affirming Language Job Aid

Other Resources

• Infertility Services in Family Planning Care Toolkit
• *UPDATED* Title X Policy Templates
• ReproductiveRights.gov (HHS)
• Know Your Reproductive Rights Video (OPA)

9:00–10:15 am | Establishing and Expanding Effective Community Partnerships

• Session Slides (PPTX 969 KB)
• Establishing and Providing Effective Referrals for Clients: A Toolkit for Family Planning Providers
  • Nondirective Counseling and Referral Sample Policy Template
  • Nondirective Counseling and Referral Job Aid
  • Value Proposition Template
  • Title X Sample MOU Template

10:15–11:00 am | "Ask me Anything” Facilitation of Questions and Discussion with Grantees and Break

11:00 am–12:15 pm | Supporting and Retaining Staff

Facilitators: Julie Rennecker, Syzygy Teams

• Session Slides (PPTX 15.55 MB)
• Strategies for Creating a Supportive Work Environment for Sexual and Reproductive Health Staff Toolkit
  • Work Plan for Building a Supportive Workplace Environment
  • Energy Board Job Aid
• Worker Well-Being Questionnaire (WellBQ) – Resources for Action (NIOSH)
• How to Help Your Team With Burnout When You’re Burned Out Yourself (Harvard Business Review)
• When the Grass is Truly Greener: How Companies are Retaining Frontline Talent (McKinsey Organization Blog)
• Rethink Your Employee Value Proposition (Harvard Business Review)

12:15–12:30 pm | Closing and Evaluation

Angie Fellers LeMire, MS is a Senior Consultant with JSI and has 25 years of public health and sexual and reproductive health experience. She previously practiced as a nurse practitioner at Tri-County Health Department and Denver Metro STI Clinic. While at Denver Public Health’s STI Clinic, Angie assisted with the implementation of the federal Title X Family Planning Program. Prior to joining JSI, she was the Colorado Title X Family Planning Program Nurse Consultant and served as the Interim Program Manager. Her passions and expertise are focused on sexual and reproductive health equity, increasing contraceptive access, scopes of practice, public health workforce, and public health nursing leadership.

Jennifer Kawatu, RN MPH has almost twenty years of experience developing and delivering training and technical assistance for sexual and reproductive health providers. She combines her background in women’s health nursing and public health, to provide training and technical assistance with a particular focus on using proven, data-driven approaches to advancing equity, access, and quality of services. Currently the Office on Women’s Health Team Lead for the RHNTC, Ms. Kawatu has worked for JSI for over 18 years, working on technical assistance and quality improvement projects for a range of clients including CDC, OPA, state and local health departments, as well as hospitals and clinic sites. Ms. Kawatu has a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a Master’s degree in Public Health with a concentration in Maternal and Child Health from Boston University.

Julie Rennecker, PhD, CEO & Chief Catalyst of Syzygy Teams, is a scholar-practitioner specializing in talent optimization and management strategies to improve productivity, innovation, and employee well-being. She earned her doctorate in Organizational Behavior from MIT’s Sloan School of Management then served on the Information Systems faculty at Case Western Reserve University where she taught courses on management communication and change leadership in the MBA and Executive Education programs. She now works with healthcare and technology leaders using strengths-based methods to build effective, resilient, human-friendly organizations. She has been a frequent speaker at Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) meetings throughout Central Texas and is a Lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin.

Joely Pritzker, is a Family Nurse Practitioner who specializes in reproductive and sexual health. She leads trainings for the National Clinical Training Center for Family Planning, Envision SRH and other organizations on the PATH Framework, client-centered counseling, non-directive pregnancy options counseling, LARC placement, contraceptive methods and patient self-advocacy. Most recently, she led in-person trainings on non-directive options counseling at the 2022 Annual Reproductive Health Conference, as well as a virtual workshop on the same topic for the Massachusetts Sexual and Reproductive Health Training Center. She has worked in a variety of clinical settings and currently practices at an FQHC in Vista, California. She is a contributing author for the upcoming 22nd Edition of Contraceptive Technology. Joely is particularly passionate about finding ways to operationalize reproductive justice principals into clinical practice and is dedicated to helping providers, medical assistants and other support staff develop their counseling skills and clinical knowledge.

Patty Cason, is a Family Nurse Practitioner, trainer, and educator with a specialty in sexual and reproductive health. She has practiced for 40 years in a wide variety of clinical and academic settings and is an Assistant Clinical Professor and lecturer at the UCLA School of Nursing. Her goal is centering patients with a sex-positive, trauma-informed, anti-racist lens. Patty is a contracted consultant to training agencies, non-profits, and state departments of health across the United States. Patty developed the PATH framework and the ASA Cycle for person-centered conversations and counseling. She wrote a seminal chapter on person-centered counseling for the 21st Edition of Contraceptive Technology and is the lead author for the 22nd Edition. Patty serves on the board of directors for the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, the National Medical Committee for Planned Parenthood, and several other advisory boards including the Clinical Training Center for Family Planning. She recently helped revise the CDC’s “A Guide to Taking a Sexual History”, in order to make the questions more inclusive. Other publications include research and opinion pieces in peer reviewed journals, nationally utilized on-line learning courses, instructional videos, textbook chapters, clinical protocols, job aids, and manuals. Patty Cason is qualified as a trainer and a trainer of trainers working in sexual and reproductive health. As a family nurse practitioner and a contracted consultant to training agencies, non-profits, and state departments of health across the United States she is able to train both licensed and non-licensed staff. Patty developed the PATH framework and the ASA Cycle for person-centered conversations and counseling. She wrote a seminal chapter on person-centered counseling for the 21st Edition of Contraceptive Technology. She is the lead author for the 22nd Edition of Contraceptive Technology for which she co-wrote a with Joely Pritzker on Non-Directive Pregnancy Options Counseling.

Berna Mason, has served as the Interim Chief Executive Officer since July 2021. Since that time, Berna and the EBTX team have weathered Senate Bill 8, received Dire Needs funding to implement an Emergency Contraception initiative that included mail order repro-kits, received a five-year Title X award that has designated Texas as the largest Title X grantee in the country, and has worked with staff to build a culture based on shared values. Her previous role as Director of Service Delivery Improvement, Berna led the team responsible for both compliance and ensuring the delivery of high-quality sexual and reproductive healthcare. Berna works with all clinic staff to identify gaps in service delivery and strives to bring care to the highest quality possible. Spending most of her time on the ground, Berna and her team traverse the state, providing training and tailored technical assistance.

"My job is to support providers so when the door closes in an exam room and only two remain, they recognize the sacred opportunity they have to create a space so very safe that someone will tell you the most intimate and personal details of their lives. I encourage them to see this as a dance. It can be tentative and cautious at first, and then lead to being anticipatory. When there are pauses, we know that we should perhaps circle back to that question later, when trust deepens, we are in step, we know we will be caught should we fall, and suddenly the most astonishing thing happens, truth emerges. And when that happens your clients’, needs get met. That’s the sauce.”

Before arriving at Every Body Texas, Berna worked for several years as a Midwife. She worked with families and communities to help support the provision of contraception, prenatal care, birth support, and postpartum care. Berna believes that all people deserve person-centered and holistic health care no matter where they are from or how much money they have. This philosophy allows Berna to connect and support providers to inspire teams to work together to ensure that patient dignity is at the heart of everything they do. Berna obtained her training through a long and winding road of formal midwifery training paired with apprenticeship in varied clinical settings. These experiences provided her with a vast perspective of how resource allocation affects quality of care. Berna has served on Boards for international relief non-profits and has volunteered as a mentor for children with incarcerated parents, an experience she knows about firsthand. She enjoys swimming in cold water, writing, coffee, and a good stack of books.

Kami Geoffray, is the President of Geoffray Strategies, a consulting firm based in Austin, Texas, offering policy and strategy solutions for healthcare clients. An experienced advocate and strategist, Kami has nearly 15 years of experience in government, legal, and nonprofit sectors, on both the state and national level, with a focus on reproductive health policy and programs. Kami most recently served as the Chief Executive Officer of Every Body Texas, where she spent five years overseeing the administration of the second-largest Title X family planning services grant award in the nation. Kami is a Board member of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Healthcare Association and a member of the Funding and Payment Strategies Workgroup convened by the Coalition to Expand Contraceptive Access. She has served as a Steering Committee member of the Texas Women’s Healthcare Coalition, as Secretary of the Family Planning Councils of America, and as a member of the Family Planning National Training Center’s Leadership Council, Power to Decide's Better Birth Control Framework Expert Panel, and Aetna’s Medicaid National Advisory Council. Kami received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Rice University and her Juris Doctor degree from Tulane Law School. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable John E. Conery of the 16th Judicial District Court of the State of Louisiana and is a member of the Louisiana Bar.