Boulder Valley Women's Health Center

The Boulder Valley Women’s Health Center provides our Family Planning Program to the Boulder and surrounding community. This is a wellness program for all teens and women that provides preventive health screening, birth control, sexually transmitted infection (STI) diagnosis and treatment, health education and risk assessment. All services are provided by Advanced Practice Nurses (APN), including Nurse Practitioners and Certified Nurse Midwives. Most services are provided according to the program guidelines of the federal Title X family planning program, a program that Women’s Health has participated in since 1985. Women’s Health is the only Title X provider in Boulder County. Title X requires that all family planning services be provided on a sliding fee scale based on a patient’s income. It also requires that fees slide to $0 for patients below 100% of the federal poverty level. Women’s Health chooses to apply this sliding fee scale to all services provided in the family planning clinic, regardless of whether they are Title X-required services or not. Two important programs in the Family Planning program are Women's Wellness Connection (WWC) and Komen Breast Cancer Screening. These two programs work together to assure that low income women between the ages of 40-64 receive mammograms and/or Pap smears when indicated. Other funds for the family planning program are provided by Boulder County, City of Boulder, Longmont, Louisville, Broomfield, private foundations and individual donors. Women’s Health has Spanish-bilingual staff members available for all patient visits and all educational materials are available in English and Spanish. Some of our clinic time is reserved exclusively to serve teens under 20 years old at our Teen Clinic. Currently, Teen Clinic in Boulder is open 16 clinician hours per week, and the Teen Clinic located in Longmont is open 12 clinician hours per week. During Teen Clinic hours, no adults are seen, and all services are provided without charge. The exact same services are available during Teen Clinic as during adult family planning clinic hours. Parental involvement is encouraged but, by law in Colorado, teens may access family planning and STI services without parental knowledge or consent. Home-based Contraception (HBC) is another clinical service provided in conjunction with Boulder County Public Health’s GENESIS program that provides support services for parenting teens. HBC provides injectable birth control to teen moms in their homes by a Women's Health RN, in an effort to prevent the subsequent births that often occur while they are still in their teens. Community Health Education is an important aspect of the Youth Services Program. Community Health Educators from Women’s Health are experts in teaching comprehensive sexuality education to middle and high school aged students. These educators will also train health teachers the newest in contraception, risk reduction and sexual health strategies. In addition, we provide education to parents on how to talk to their teens about sex and sexuality. Historically, we provided sexuality education when invited into health classes only in the BVSD. The St Vrain Valley School District which serves Longmont and nearby communities changed its sexual health curriculum as of 2007-2008 school year to comprehensive sexuality education and Women’s Health is one of two approved resources for that school district. Another aspect of the education program is the Sexual Health and AIDS Awareness Peer Education (SHAPE) program. This program trains 12-15 youth each year to be peer educators, so that accurate information is disseminated in schools and youth can mentor other youth. SHAPERs also assist in sexual health education in the classroom.