Support The Wire

Q&A with Willa Marth of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands: educational programs, the lawsuits, and federal policy impacts

After the Department of Health and Human Services announced in July 2017 that it would abruptly cut funding for the National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP), Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands (PPGNHI) joined with two other Planned Parenthood affiliates to sue the Trump-Pence administration in federal district court in Washington State.

The federal court issued a permanent injunction preventing the cuts in April 2018, but about the same time the administration issued new funding opportunity guidance that outlined the scope of Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program funds moving forward. The new guidelines emphasize “risk-avoidance” and “risk reduction” in an abstinence-only approach heavily favored by conservatives. On June 22, 2018, PPGNHI and two additional affiliates again filed suit in federal court challenging the focus on abstinence to the exclusion of evidence-based medically accurate approaches.

While that case is still pending, the Washington State Wire sat down with Willa Marth, PPGNHI’s Chief Learning Officer, to learn about the organization’s programs and talk about what these policy changes may mean for Washington teens.


Marjie High  – Last month Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit against the government  regarding the administration’s new regulations for Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program funds. Could you tell me how this lawsuit is related to some of the services and educational programs that you provide?

WM – Sure we first received [the TPPP] funding in 2015, when the focus was on evidenced-based, medically accurate information and reaching communities that have disparate outcomes and who are traditionally marginalized. We received four grants they all sort of do different things.

Two of the grants that we received have to do with building upon evidence-based programs and focusing on communities that aren’t represented in the current curricula that was available to prevent teen pregnancies.

The first program is called Linking Families and Teens or LiFT and it is a one day program that supports child/parent communication while providing the young people with the resources they need to learn about their sexual health and how to access sexual health resources if they need to.  LiFT is focused on rural communities because rural communities often have less access and resources to both services and sex education that is accurate medically and comprehensive. So what’s great is that it’s being rigorously evaluated so we are in the process of that and we have early positive indications that it is going to do what we think it’s going to do.

  1.   A second program is called INclude. It focuses on so LGBTQ young folks, another group of young folks that typically does not get the information that they need. INclude is a two pronged program:
  2.   Programs for the youth themselves aimed at giving them accurate information that is specific to their needs as queer young folk. It helps them understand how to navigate the health care system to be able to advocate for what they need not only in their relationships, but also in the health care setting.

We also have the young folks from our peer education program Teen Council, which is youth who already feel comfortable talking about sexual health, partner with an adult facilitator. Together they actually train health care staff to be more LGBTQ inclusive and youth friendly so that when LGBTQ youth in the community come in, they can provide the best service to them.

That is also being in rigorously evaluated and we are seeing some really strong, promising results initially.

MH – Is the INclude program state-wide?

WM – Both of those programs are actually being implemented across the country in a variety of settings including within Washington State. We partner with affiliates and community groups across the country.

MH – Tell me more about the other two programs.

WM – We received two other grants from the Office of Adolescent Health (OAH). One is called Improving the Lives of Teens, which involves implementing pregnancy prevention programs that are already approved as being comprehensive and medically accurate. The folks that are implementing Improving the Lives of Teens other Planned Parenthood affiliates, so again educators who are used to talking about sexual health. It is being focused on communities with disparate outcomes are it relates to teen pregnancy.

The final program is called Stronger Together. What it does is provides capacity building support to organizations who work with young people, but do not have a sexual health background so that they can implement the evidence-based programs that are currently on OAH’s list. We provide sexual health training and education, both generally to improve the depth of knowledge and on the actual curricula.

MH –If the current administration’s new regulations are actually implemented, how would they affect some of these programs?

WM – Well so, there are two pieces. We have our initial lawsuit because the administration terminated funding for grantees like our self. We won that, so now we do have our year four funding. We still don’t know if we will get our year five funding, but we are good to continue with these programs for year four and of course we are investigating back-up plans for year five.

The other piece is that because of some of the language that the administration uses with newly proposed abstinence-only based funding opportunities we did not feel like we could ethically apply for that funding because it does not meet the needs of young people in our communities. It doesn’t have the same rigor around medical accuracy. It doesn’t have the same inclusivity piece to make sure we are reaching all young people’s needs.

So in that case, we made the decision both to sue and not apply for the funding. This is problematic because other organizations and Planned Parenthood affiliates were interested in partnering with us moving forward and were especially excited about moving forward with LiFT and INclude. It would have been a great opportunity to expand those research projects and those programming projects, but we cannot do that.

MH – Do you anticipate any cuts or are there alternate funding streams that would allow you to continue the programs?

WM – Well so like I was saying, we are funded for year four. When they originally said that they were going to cut the funding we were definitely talking to development folks and coming together to see what our options might be, so should it come to that again we will be in that same situation. But at this point we are funded for year four.

MH – So the option is trying to bring in more private funding as opposed to government funding to allow the programs to continue into the future?

WM – At this point we need the federal funding. We also have other funding streams for other programs, but this is a significant amount of money, nearly $19 million dollars over five years so that’s no a small amount of money to figure out how to make up.

MH – You mentioned that some of these programs are directed to underprivileged communities or under accessed communities, could you tell me how the programs are particularly directed to these communities?

WM – Yes, so with LiFT, rural communities tend to be low resourced and have little opportunities for young people to get sexual health information and access services.  With INclude, LGBTQ youth have disproportionately high teen pregnancy rates. Sometimes folks are surprised by that considering they are often in same gendered relationships, but the reality is that because of the stigma and the difficulty navigating their identity, they are at more risk of more risky behaviors and behaviors that cause pregnancy. That is why we chose to work with that group and we feel like considering how we approach young people in the work that we have done with sexual health for so long that it was important we had a program that was specifically for that group.

Improving the Lives of Teens, is more economically focused. And as we know, economics and race are intertwined, and so the programs tend to be in communities of color and then also they are lower income communities. This is similar to Stronger Together. With Stronger Together, we are building the capacity of folks at agencies that work with marginalized populations of youth – for example Youth Care who work with youth that are experiencing homelessness.

MH – Does the lawsuit impact any other programs at Planned Parenthood or is it specifically directed to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs funding?

WM- Here at Planned Parenthood, it directly impacts these grant program, but the challenge is that we are not the only people or organizations applying for these funds. The language that they use is a bit tricky and a bit sneaky. So “risk avoidance” sounds like a good thing but really abstinence-only is not proven effective. Abstinence is great and we talk about abstinence, but we need to give youth the full range of information.

So I say that because all sorts of community organizations and health departments are trying to decide if they are going to apply for these funds, so it does have an impact in our community. You also get school districts that think that this [abstinence-only] is what they have to do because they don’t fully understand the regulations. So you end up having conversations that you never had to have before.

MH  – So I think most people have noticed that this administration has been particularly hostile towards Planned Parenthood.  Is there anything else that is on your radar in terms of where you anticipate attacks or where you are afraid the administration will go next?

WM – I think what’s important to note is that we are a health care provider for all patients. We do education in all communities with all young people and families. That means that when there are policies coming down from this administration about immigration, when there are policies around LGBTQ rights, the Supreme Court justice nomination, all of those policies impact our communities. For example, you look at immigration. The administration’s policies make folks fearful to access services including ours, and so that puts a strain on us as an organization and particularly our communities.

MH – Is there anything else that you would like to make sure that people hear from your organization?

WM – I just think that the bottom lines is that – as it relates to education,  as it relates to families and young people – we are committed to ensuring  that people get the education and services that they need to live the lives that they want to live. And we will continue to provide that, continue to build relations in communities, and fight in the way that we need to fight to make that happen.

 – This interview has been edited for length and clarity.


Your support matters.

Public service journalism is important today as ever. If you get something from our coverage, please consider making a donation to support our work. Thanks for reading our stuff.