The Office of Population Affairs provides funding for grants and contracts to support training for personnel working in Title X-funded services projects (42 U.S.C.

300, Sec 1003).

The purpose of all family planning training is to ensure that personnel working in Title X family planning

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services projects have the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary for the effective delivery of family planning services; and that family planning program services and management are high quality.

The clinical training center for family planning provides training to ensure that clinical services are high-quality and is expected to provide training and technical assistance grounded in evidence-based principles.

From the early 1970s until the year 2000, the OPA funded certificate family planning/women’s health nurse practitioner training programs to ensure the availability of health care practitioners with expertise in family planning to work in Title X-funded clinics.

Beginning in 2000, Title X began funding the “clinical specialty’’ training programs, as a means to ensure that health care practitioners had the hands-on knowledge and skills to provide effective, high quality family planning services in Title X-funded service projects.

Following these programs, in 2006 the family planning clinical training cooperative agreement was funded to provide preceptor training and a biannual reproductive health conference.

This Notice announces the availability of funds for a new clinical training program that will continue and build upon all of the previous efforts and serve Title X-funded service providers throughout the country.

This announcement seeks applications from public and private nonprofit entities to establish and operate a Title X family planning clinical training center, which shall provide training to and ensure that health care practitioners providing services in Title X-funded service projects have the knowledge, skills and attitudes to provide effective and high-quality family planning clinical services.

The clinical training center must use evidence-based information and incorporate best practices and/or evidence-informed practices in all aspects of training.

The successful applicant must incorporate all applicable elements of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Office of Population Affairs (OPA) joint publication, “Providing Quality Family Planning Services” (QFP) (MMWR; 63 (No.

4)) in training design, curricula development and material creation, as appropriate.

In addition, the successful applicant will maintain knowledge of the most current research and standards of care in order to act as a resource on a broad range of clinical family planning and reproductive health issues, including other training centers funded within the Title X program.

Awards will be in the form of a cooperative agreement with the grantee for up to 4 years.

A cooperative agreement, as opposed to a grant, is an award instrument of financial assistance where substantial programmatic involvement is anticipated between OAH and the grantee during performance of the project or activity.

In addition to the usual monitoring and technical assistance provided under the cooperative agreement (e.g., assistance from assigned Federal project officer, regular conference calls, occasional monitoring visits, ongoing review of plans and progress, participation in relevant meetings, provision of training and technical assistance), OPA substantial programmatic involvement will include:
1) Assisting the awardee to establish, review, and update priorities for activities conducted under the auspices of this cooperative agreement.

2) Consulting with the awardee throughout the preparation and dissemination of materials related to the grant.

3) Review all program materials prior to use in the project to ensure the materials are clinically and programmatically accurate and complete.