Family Planning National Training Center (FPNTC)

The unintended pregnancy rate in the U.S. is at a historic low; however, the rate remains high compared to other developed nations with nearly half (45%) of U.S. pregnancies unintended. Federal funding through the Title X program aims to decrease the number of unplanned pregnancies, increase optimal birth spacing, decrease sexually transmitted infections and improve birth outcomes in the U.S. through the provision of voluntary, confidential, and low-cost education, counseling, and related comprehensive medical services. The Title X program is comprised of 70 agencies that oversee over 2,000 sites nationwide. As it nears its fifth decade, the Title X program faces the challenge of providing services of the highest quality while adapting to and thriving during a period of health care transformation and innovation.

Under a cooperative agreement with the HHS Office of Population Affairs, JSI manages the Title X Family Planning National Training Center for Service Delivery Improvement (FPNTC) in partnership with the World Health Organization Collaborating Center and the National Implementation Research Network at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The FPNTC strengthens the capacity of Title X-funded family planning organizations to provide high-quality family planning services. To achieve this goal, the FPNTC provides training, technical assistance, and resources to help transform the family planning delivery system and better support agencies that assist individuals in determining the number and spacing of their children.

The FPNTC website is the primary platform through which the FPNTC supports Title X grantees and their networks of service sites. The website hosts over 350 training resources to increase knowledge, build skills and support implementation and systems improvement — including 23 eLearning courses, 24 training guides, 106 job aids, 34 toolkits/guides, 69 archived events, 21 videos, 2 data dashboards, and 9 grantee spotlights as of 2020.

Staff at Title X-funded agencies are expected to complete regular training on family planning service delivery. The FPNTC Training Tracking System is a website feature that enables Title X-funded agencies to create and share customized lists of FPNTC training resources with staff and track completion of assigned trainings. As of 2020, the FPNTC website had over 23,000 active accounts. Nearly 300 users have registered for a training administrator account and these users have created 277 training lists.

The FPNTC hosts national learning collaboratives to increase performance on selected family planning measures, online peer learning groups to support implementation of skills and facilitate systems change, and webinars to promote knowledge exchange. Specialized technical assistance (TA) is offered to Title X grantees on a rolling basis. FPNTC Grantee Liaisons follow up with grantees at least annually to discuss training needs and coordinate TA requests. Since the beginning of the project in 2016, the FPNTC has reached 100 percent of grantees and grantee networks through its training and technical assistance activities.

The FPNTC works closely with the Title X National Clinical Training Center for Family Planning (CTCFP) at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, which delivers clinical skills training and resources to health care providers in the Tile X and related public health communities.

Previous Title X Family Planning National Training Center Projects:

Family Planning National Training Center on Quality Assurance, Quality Improvement, and Evaluation

Family Planning National Training Center on Management and Systems Improvement