A collaborative written piece by WGSD members:
Morgan Justice-Black, Director of Development & Marketing, I Love a Clean San Diego
Kersten Wehde, Associate Director of Major Gifts, Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest
On September 12th, the members of Women Give San Diego were treated to an informative meeting hosted by Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest’s (PPPSW) Rebecca Karpinski, Vice President of Strategy and Organizational Effectiveness, and Nora Vargas, Vice President of Community Engagement. The venue and presenters were graciously arranged by Women Give San Diego member and PPPSW Board Chair, Jennifer Dreyer. She led us in a fun and thoughtful activity.
Planned Parenthood and Women Give are very similar in their desire to empower women and girls and close the economic gap that exists among many women. The meeting opened with a short but powerful video entitled “Girl Effect”. This powerful 3-minute video addressed the relationship between unintended pregnancy and poverty among women. (See video here: http://www.girleffect.org/video)
Rebecca noted some interesting statistics and challenges specific to San Diego County:
- 250,000 women are living at 125% of the federal poverty level. For a single woman, that means $13,000 in annual income, and $28,000 for a family of four.
- 80,000 women live in extreme poverty. For a single woman, that means $5,000 in annual income, and $11,000 for a family of four.
- Women are more likely to live in poverty because they work part time or sporadically; have children, are single parents or care for others; and may suffer from pay and health inequity.
- 25% of women in SD are foreign born, many with limited English proficiency, which limits their employment opportunities or traps them in lower-wage fields that lack benefits (i.e., domestic workers and childcare).
- 6% of all women are undocumented or unauthorized residents
Being poor increases one’s likelihood of unintended pregnancy. Women living in poverty are less likely to have insurance, access to services, and funds to afford services. They are also less likely to fill prescriptions. Planned Parenthood’s role is to provide women with access to affordable reproductive health services and accurate information so they can plan their pregnancies and continue on their path to economic self-sufficiency.
Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest includes 19 health centers across three counties (San Diego, Riverside and Imperial), and serves 300,000 patient visits each year. Significant funding for PPPSW comes through the state’s Family PACT (Planning Access Care Treatment) program, conceived by Governor Pete Wilson. Because income is so inextricably tied to unintended pregnancy, FPACT has become a crucial program for women living in poverty, allowing them to access free services including testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infection, cancer screening and birth control. It makes economic sense, too: For every $1 we invest in family planning, the state saves $5.33 in future Medi-Cal and other social service costs, and that’s just in the first year.
Nora Vargas spoke after Rebecca, citing Planned Parenthood’s multiple community engagement activities in the agency’s three-county service area. Among the more recent endeavors are efforts targeting monolingual communities such as the Somali refugee population, as well as the successful Teen Success program for pregnant and parenting teens. Participants in this program are expected to maintain their family size, complete their high school/vocational/GED education, and develop life skills that lead to self-sufficiency. This is considered an especially at-risk population, as teen mothers are more likely to drop out of high school and be and remain single parents. One-fourth of adolescent mothers will have a second child within 24 months of the first.
PPPSW has a variety of programs including:
· Classroom education in partnership with many local school districts in San Diego, Riverside and Imperial Counties.
· Faith-based programs collaborating with spiritual institutions.
· A Promotoras program which trains a motivated individual from disenfranchised communities to speak to her community members about family planning and other issues in their native language.
· Teen Success, focused on young women who have carried “unintended” pregnancies to term, and is intended to help these young women find jobs, finish school and better manage motherhood.
Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest is committed to closing the economic gap through reducing unintended pregnancy. See for yourself at: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pacific-southwest/
Note: you may have seen Jennifer profiled last month in a few local publications: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/pacific-southwest/files/Pacific-Southwest/RanchoSantaFeReview_08-11-2011.pdf
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