I want to thank so many of you for joining us last month as we celebrated World Contraception Day together. We gathered virtually as a community to share what contraceptive care means to us and why we work in the field, we played a little birth control trivia ????✨????, and we took a moment in the midst of some difficult news in reproductive health to remember why the work we do matters.
I was grateful to hear so many uplifting stories of patient-centered care, of expanded and improved access to contraception, of personal motivations and professional successes. Celebrating with all of you was wonderful, even as we remember that we have so much more to do.
In the spirit of continuing the work, we are pleased to announce two new Upstream partners, Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program and Cambridge Health Alliance. We also are thrilled to share our new Patient Education Materials, which we developed to assist our health center partners in providing best-in-class contraceptive care.
NEW UPSTREAM PARTNERS
We are pleased to announce two new Upstream Partners, Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program and Cambridge Health Alliance!
Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program
For 35 years, Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP)’s mission has remained the same: “to provide or assure access to the highest quality health care for all homeless individuals and families in the greater Boston area.”
We are thrilled to be working with such a dedicated team of individuals across their 45 locations as they deliver the highest quality health care to their patients. Over 11,000 individuals experiencing homelessness are cared for each year by BHCHP, and we look forward to helping ensure expanded access to patient-centered contraceptive care and a full range of contraceptive methods.
Cambridge Health Alliance
Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) is a vibrant, innovative health system that serves over 140,000 patients in Cambridge, Somerville and Boston’s metro-north region.
CHA is “passionately local,” providing high quality, essential services like primary care, specialty care, hospital care, emergency services, maternity care and behavioral health in neighborhood locations. CHA’s work extends beyond patient care — they collaborate closely with local governments and nonprofits to improve health and reduce barriers to care. We look forward to beginning our work with CHA and doing our part to help improve access to a full range of contraceptive methods and excellent patient-centered care.
NEW PATIENT EDUCATION MATERIALS
We are excited to share Upstream’s latest program evolution with you: a suite of new patient education materials to help our health center partners deliver best-in-class contraceptive care. For more detailed information about our new materials, including our development process, please see our blog post.
Upstream partners who have completed training can now access free, digital versions of the materials online in our Partner Portal website. To learn more about receiving printed materials at your health center, contact your Upstream team or send us an email at MA@upstream.org.
If you are interested in learning more about working with Upstream MA, please reach out to us at MA@Upstream.org.
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