Midwest Access Project

GOAL (1) Train a diverse array of health care professionals who are highly motivated to provide comprehensive reproductive health care in their future practice to under served patient populations, but who lack access to the clinical training to do so.

GOAL (2) Build relationships with organizations and allies in the field to grow opportunities for training nationwide and build supportive community networks for providers.

GOAL (3) MAP will elevate its public profile and expand its capacity to engage new individuals and organizations through external communication, fundraising, and public programming.

• MAP will use its new clinical training application process to identify applicants
o with a demonstrated intention to incorporate sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services into their future practice. Applicants will share examples of their prior commitment to SRH and details about their future practice and how they plan to make it happen.
o who intend to provide reproductive health care to unserved/under served patient populations. Applicants will be asked to share the geographic location of their future practice, whether rural, suburban/urban, the care setting, whether other SRH services or providers exist in this area, and the impact their practice would have on the community. The applicant will share whether they would live in that community or travel in to provide care.
o with no access, or extremely limited access to training in reproductive health without MAP, filling gaps in clinical education.
• MAP will develop an individual trainee’s motivation to provide by
o exposing early stage learners to comprehensive reproductive health care and moving them toward competence by offering hands on clinical training in later stages of their clinical education;
o enrich and lengthen clinical training rotations for current trainees;
o and use the new application process to select returning trainees seeking additional hands on clinical training opportunities.
• Provide accessible one-time clinical education opportunities. 120 health care providers, students, and advocates receive educational material and information on reproductive topics of interest through 11 workshops and didactic presentations.

To advance this goal in 2021, MAP will create a program to offer information, resources, skill building and mentor ship to MAP clinical training alum to equip them to reduce barriers and increase access to full scope comprehensive reproductive health care in their communities, practices, and institutions. To begin, MAP will convene an advisory committee consisting of board, staff, MAP alum, providers, and advocates to help identify barriers providers encounter to providing full scope reproductive health care; share promising strategies to reduce those barriers; and make recommendations for priority activities for the new program. The new Advisory Committee will have 15 – 20 members and will meet three or four times through early 2021.

MAP plans to host 2 meetings for allies and providers and attend 4 conferences/meetings focused on reproductive health care or advancing the integration of reproductive health care within primary care settings.

MAP’s Individual Clinical Training model has unique components not reflected in other training programs around the country, making the MAP training experience highly desirable and valued by trainees and our partner trainer sites.

• MAP regularly receives applications for clinical training from residents who report that they do not get the patient volume they need to reach competence and when they train, there are multiple trainees on site so they don’t receive the personalized attention of the preceptors. In contrast, MAP matches trainees with sites to meet individualized training goals, orient trainees to the training and the clinical site(s), support trainees through the training experience, and collect evaluation materials. MAP trainees are the only learners matched with a trainer.
• MAP provides both the trainees and the sites the resources, administrative coordination, orientation, scheduling, and matching that neither of the parties has the time or funds to do on their own.
• Unlike most training partnerships around the country, MAP pays its training sites a well- earned revenue stream to compensate them for the clinic time and expertise they offer MAP trainees.
• Many providers believe that training a new generation is critical to their mission. MAP works with trainers to optimize the quality of the learning experience, provide feedback to trainees, and help trainees progress to the next stage of their training or career in reproductive health. The team effort and demonstration of interdisciplinary collaboration is transparent and explicit in MAP’s practice.
• Our training partners are primarily independent clinics and outpatient health centers. Unlike residency training programs designed in hospital settings, MAP trainees experience what abortion and family planning care is like for the majority of people who provide and access it. As Guttmacher notes, 95% of abortion care occurs in clinics; this “real life” experience offers trainees high procedure volume and the ability to assess whether this care setting is a viable option for their future practice. And for those interested in primary care outpatient provision it also allows them the experience to assess how they can translate the provision of services to that setting.

MAP is the only on-the-ground organization in the Midwest addressing reproductive health training gaps. With thirteen years of expertise in the field, MAP is optimally positioned to overcome the shortage of providers in the Midwest because it is rooted in the local and state health care and advocacy communities.

Since its founding in 2007, MAP has provided individual clinical training experiences to over 280 health care professionals and hosted hundreds of workshops. In 2017, MAP reformed its staffing structure from part time contractual positions and now has 2 full time positions and 1 part time staff. The new staffing structure allows MAP to grow and innovate its programming, community reach, and fundraising. The new staffing structure also allowed MAP’s board to transition from a working board to a governance role.

In 2020, MAP is building organizational capacity in several areas:

(1) To allow MAP to train more Advanced Practice Clinicians in abortion care and reach its other training goals, MAP must expand its clinical network nationwide and into states with less restrictive laws, policies, and scope of practice limitations. To accomplish this expansion, MAP created a dynamic work plan to manage the project. In 2020, MAP’s board and staff have reached out to over 15 potential clinics, and we’re pleased to report that MAP signed new training partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates in Wisconsin and Great Plains, adding 5 – 6 new training sites to our network. In the summer of 2020, MAP added new training partnerships with independent clinics in Little Rock, and Memphis.
(2) In February 2020, MAP launched a new modern website with current content, resources, and information.
(3) A Program Evaluation Specialist is working with MAP program staff to build new tools and internal processes to collect and analyze program data and we expect that work to be completed in the fall 2020.
(4) A Strategic Planning consultant facilitated several board and staff conversations to create a new 5-year plan, which was approved in February 2020. An implementation work plan was created and the work is underway.
(5) In August 2020, work began on a new storytelling project to share how MAP’s work has impacted donors, training alum, and the larger community. These interviews will be used to create communications tools for fundraising appeals, community awareness, and donor engagement.

To advance our movement building goals in 2021, MAP will create a program to offer information, resources, skill building and mentor ship to MAP clinical training alum to equip them to reduce barriers and increase access to full scope comprehensive reproductive health care in their communities, practices, and institutions. To begin, MAP will convene an advisory committee consisting of board, staff, MAP alum, providers, and advocates to help identify barriers providers encounter to providing full scope reproductive health care; share promising strategies to reduce those barriers; and make recommendations for priority activities for the new program. The new Advisory Committee will have 15 – 20 members and will meet three or four times through early 2021.