Annual Report
2021
For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021.
Connecting to Care
at PPGNY
We are building a world where all communities have full access to innovative, high-quality, affordable, evidence-based sexual and reproductive health services, which will always include abortion, whenever, wherever, and however they are needed.
Letter from Our Interim CEO
& Board Chair
Planned Parenthood of Greater New York: A Story of Resilience, Innovation, and Impact
Planned Parenthood of Greater New York launched during a year that quickly tested our strength and resilience. Despite the extraordinary circumstances presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded with injustices against communities of color and attacks on abortion rights — PPGNY merged five legacy Planned Parenthood affiliates to become a powerful network of health care providers, educators, and advocates.
Our resilience is defined by our ongoing commitment to center patients who historically, and still, are forced to overcome systemic discrimination in health care and society. These patients reflect BIPOC communities, families with low incomes, LGBTQ+ individuals, residents of rural communities, immigrants, and people who hold multiple marginalized identities.
Our communities couldn’t bear a sluggish response to the pandemic. We swiftly launched telehealth services to meet our patients where they needed us. Our mobile health centers brought lifesaving services directly to underserved neighborhoods. Our educators and community health promoters provided critical resources to young people while school-based clinics were closed. Our strategic planning paid off in summer 2021. PPGNY celebrated the restart of in-person health care services at five centers that temporarily closed due to the severity of the pandemic. This marked an incredible milestone in our recovery.
We did this all while confronting a deeper, insidious issue — racism. As our nation reckoned with white supremacy and the over-policing of Black communities, we looked inward to grapple with the totality of our own legacy. This led to the removal of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s name from our Manhattan health center. This was one way we upheld our mission to be an inclusive, anti-racist organization where all communities and staff can thrive.
Through the collective commitment of our leadership, staff, volunteers, and supporters, PPGNY conquered unimaginable obstacles with mindfulness and vigor. This journey prepared us for a future where Planned Parenthood of Greater New York will serve as a safe haven for sexual and reproductive health care and rights — which always include safe, legal abortion — for all New Yorkers and people across the country who will have to turn to us for compassionate, non-judgmental care.
We are immensely thankful for your support. We are very proud of our accomplishments and ready for what the future holds.
Joy D. Calloway, Interim President & CEO
Karen Seltzer, Board Chair
PPGNY by the Numbers
Equitable Health Care —
When and Where It’s Needed
During a year that magnified inequities in health care, PPGNY delivered lifesaving services to communities disproportionately harmed both by the COVID-19 crisis and systemic barriers to health care—like racial, gender, and economic injustices.
-
Telehealth Innovation
Patients are now able to access a wide range of services online — including birth control, emergency contraception, transgender/non-binary hormone therapy refills, screening for sexually transmitted infections, and other services that do not require an in-person visit.
The North Country Telehealth Partnership recognized PPGNY for its quick pivot to offering telehealth services with the 2020 Telehealth Primary Care Innovators award.
-
In-Person Care Happens Here
Three months after the launch of PPGNY, New York became the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing PPGNY to retool its health care delivery model. We strategically consolidated clinical resources, staff, and personal protective equipment across our network. Thanks to this foresight and resourcefulness, in the summer of 2021, PPGNY celebrated the reopening of five health centers that were forced to temporarily close due to the severity of the pandemic. By resuming in-person services in Massapequa, Staten Island, Kingston, Rome, and Goshen, PPGNY expanded its capacity to deliver top-notch health care by more than 21,000 patient visits per year.
-
Transgender and Non-Binary Care in Nassau County
PPGNY expanded transgender/non-binary hormone therapy services to Nassau County. Too often, transgender people, especially transgender people of color, face barriers to care caused by transphobia and oppressive policies, and COVID-19 has exacerbated this. By offering transgender hormone therapy in Massapequa and Hempstead, we’re helping to build a more equitable New York.
Guardian of Excellence Award in the Southern Tier
PPGNY’s Southern Tier region—serving Corning, Elmira, Ithaca, and surrounding communities—received an award from patient experience organization Press Ganey that honors health care providers who consistently receive remarkable scores in patient surveys, including “likelihood to recommend to others.” These high ratings reflect strong community support in this area, including support for our unique programs, Survivor Support Services for survivors of sexual assault and Out for Health for LGBTQ+ clients. Learn more about our programs by following the links below.
Health Center Staff March in the “Hometown Heroes” Ticker-Tape Parade
New York City honored PPGNY’s frontline staff at the “Hometown Heroes” ticker-tape parade, and they marched alongside 2,500 fellow essential workers who revitalized New York at its darkest hour.
Clinical Services by the Numbers
SRH: Sexual and Reproductive Health; SAB: Surgical Abortion;
MAB: Medication Abortion; THT: Transgender Hormone Therapy
PrEP for Women Too
Despite drastic drops in the number of new HIV diagnoses among women in New York City, Black and Latinx women continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV. With support from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, PPGNY produced “PrEP for Women Too,” a powerful video that encourages Black and Latinx women to take their health into their own hands with the use of PrEP, a daily pill that reduces the risk of HIV from sex by more than 90%.
“Our new video ‘PrEP for Women Too’ aims to break the harmful biases that, for too long, have ignored the needs of Black and Latinx women and people of color who are at greater risk of exposure to HIV.”
PrEP for Women Too
PrEP también es para las mujeres
Mobile Centers Drive Up Access to Care
Project Street Beat (PSB) gives new meaning to driving up access to health care. Our mobile health center and access to care program brings a wide range of health services to marginalized communities throughout New York City and Nassau County.
“If you don’t care, if you don’t invest back into the people, how are you going to change the community?”
Project Street Beat Featured on Vice TV
Vice TV showcased Project Street Beat’s transformative HIV-prevention outreach program in “HIV: The Neglected Pandemic,” a documentary narrated by Jonathan Van Ness, exploring the 40-year history of HIV/AIDS in the United States.
Building a Pathway to Transformation
We envision a world where everyone has the resources they need to make informed decisions about their own body, family, and future. This vision requires us to actively work toward being a multicultural, inclusive, and anti-racist organization where all communities and staff thrive.
This vision led to the creation of Reviving Radical.
Community members at a Reviving Radical gathering
Reviving Radical is an organizational approach to listening, learning, and transforming relationships with and within communities of color.
Reviving Radical steers PPGNY’s journey toward reckoning with the legacy of Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger, her support for eugenics, and the harmful impact that decision has on women of color, people with disabilities, immigrants, and families with low incomes. In 2020, PPGNY made the decision to remove Sanger’s name from its Manhattan health center as part of a public commitment to repairing historical harm.
Reviving Radical and the community mandates resulting from it have influenced all the work we do in education, training, community engagement and beyond.
-
Training the Trainers
PPGNY’s educators train teachers, social workers, clergy, and service providers to become trusted resources on sexual health. In New York City, we trained the staff of Administration for Children’s Services foster care agencies to convey healthy sexuality messages to youth, and conducted a series on reproductive health for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene staff who work in schools. For hospital staff from Glens Falls Hospital and SUNY Adirondack, we led workshops on how to support LGBTQ+ individuals.
-
Survivor Support Services
Survivor Support Services’ crisis counselors advocate for assault survivors during hospital exams, inform clients about their legal rights, develop safety plans, and provide emotional support. The program serves Chemung, Fulton, Hamilton, Montgomery, Saratoga, Schoharie, Schenectady, Schuyler, Steuben, Warren, and Washington counties. Through the power of merger, PPGNY now offers 24/7 crisis counseling to New Yorkers across the state.
In summer 2021, Survivor Support Services launched “Safer Bars,” a coalition of restaurant and bar workers in the Capital Region trained to recognize signs of sexual aggression and to intervene if needed.
Also in 2021, we shared resources in a webinar led by the Corning Incorporated Native American Council to raise awareness about the “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Week of Action.”
-
Youth Leadership Programs
We work closely with teen peer educators throughout our regions so they can share healthy messaging about sex with their fellow teens and hone their skills as advocates. On Digital Day of Action our dedicated teens met with Legislative Directors for New York State lawmakers to address the importance of mandated K-12 Comprehensive Sex Education in NYS public schools.
Our Work with Youth, Schools, and Parents
-
PPGNY’s highly skilled educators deliver evidence-informed based, age-appropriate workshops and enhanced outreach events in schools and community based organizations.
-
Our parent peer educators, the Adult Role Models, Models, reached parents and caregivers through virtual workshops and resources like “Let’s Talk,” a new quarterly newsletter to foster parent-child communication about sexual health.
-
PPGNY and six partner organizations launched Project SHINE – the Sexual Health Innovation Network for Equitable Education - to develop innovative sexuality education materials for young people with intellectual disabilities and their caregivers. The Network seeks to fill long-standing gaps in sexuality education for this community of young people.
-
We also kicked off Project STIQ - Supporting Teens in Queens to Promote Sexual Health - our new venture bringing sexual and reproductive health programming to youth, parents, and professionals in Queens Community District 3.
-
PPGNY provides evidence-based sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education and access to SRH services to youth in New York State communities with the highest teen pregnancy and birth rates. In response to COVID, we created a Virtual Sex Ed Office to provide education, referrals, appointment guidance, and social support to youth.
Our Work in Research
PPGNY is the only Planned Parenthood affiliate with a full interdisciplinary Research & Evaluation department. In 2021, the team conducted research to create new educational tools to promote sexual health among youth with intellectual disabilities, and also undertook formative research for and tested the outcomes of a capacity building program for foster care agencies. Both of these research initiatives were funded by the U.S. Office of Adolescent Health.
Our Work in Community
“We cannot deliver quality health care unless we center community and equity.”
-
Senior Director of Community Engagement Annette Marzan made a video in Spanish about the availability of PPGNY’s telehealth services, which appeared in the digital magazine “ABC Latino” and on seven radio channels popular with Spanish speakers in the Hudson Valley.
-
PPGNY leads the Newburgh and Poughkeepsie Healthy Black and Latinx Coalitions and, with coalition partners, hosted community educational forums addressing vaccine hesitancy and conducted COVID-19 vaccine pop-up sites where we administered the Pfizer vaccine.
-
Our Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) Community Ambassador Program hosted two events about what TGNC-centered care should look like in practice.
-
PPGNY leads the Newburgh and Poughkeepsie Healthy Black and Latinx Coalitions and, with coalition partners, hosted community educational forums addressing vaccine hesitancy and conducted COVID-19 vaccine pop-up sites where we administered the Pfizer vaccine.
PPGNY Staff & Supporters Celebrate Summer of Pride
Reproductive Justice Is Central to Our Mission
Through the teachings of reproductive justice leaders, PPGNY understands that it is everyone’s human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.
Mobilize.
Influence.
Advocate.
During a pivotal year in the fight against systemic racism, homophobia, transphobia, gender bias, and economic injustice, PPGNY mobilized supporters, influenced legislation and policies, and advocated for more equitable and just laws in New York.
-
Census Outreach to the Latinx Community
PPGNY’s Promotores de Salud ran our first-ever Spanish-language phone bank to inform the Latinx community about the importance of participating in the 2020 census. During the COVID-19 lockdown that impeded in-person outreach, we used technology to engage with a community that will benefit from being counted.
Over 47,000 texts were sent in English and Spanish to urge people to participate in the census.
-
Shout The Vote!
2020 was a crucial election year for the future of sexual and reproductive health care and access to abortion. PPGNY faced dual hurdles in the form of an administration in Washington actively trying to curtail both reproductive rights and voting rights, and fears about COVID-19 that inhibited door-to-door canvassing to encourage people to vote.
We effectively leveraged technology and sent 53,866 texts to voters throughout the state, and received thousands of promises to vote.
Our Legislative Wins
PPGNY advocated for critically important bills that were passed and signed into law:
-
Repeal of the "Walking While Trans" ban helps stop police from harassing and discriminating against transgender individuals in public places.
-
Elimination of the term "incorrigible" from the Family Court Act — a characterization used in the past and still now to institutionalize or incarcerate girls and women, particularly girls of color.
-
Establishment of freestanding birthing centers led by licensed midwives.
-
Provision of free menstrual products in temporary housing shelters.
-
Provides additional rights to pregnant incarcerated people, including the ability to have a support person with them during and following labor and delivery.
-
Requires local social service districts to offer a direct deposit payment option for subsidized child care; works to expand access to child care.
-
Declaration that racism is a public health crisis and establishment of a working group to promote racial equity throughout the state.
Looking Forward
Looking toward what's ahead in PPGNY’s journey of transition and growth, we are committed to enhancing our patients’ experiences with us and promoting equity within and outside of our organization.
Clinical
-
In 2022, we will welcome patients to our new state-of-the-art Bronx and Brooklyn health centers. The centers will be refurbished, enlarged, and reconfigured to make it easier for patients to navigate through the steps of their visit. Our Bronx expansion will double our capacity to provide sexual and reproductive health care services in that location.
Equity + Education
-
Our Equity and Learning (E&L) team’s vision for the new year involves expansion, both in content and methodology: bringing a stronger intersectional lens to our foundational offerings that will deepen our race+ approach; improving accessibility to E&L's learning spaces for clinical staff, in a way that meets their schedules and needs; and expanding offerings for leaders, particularly in addressing the unique challenges faced by BIPOC managers in the organization.
In 2022, we seek to reaffirm and prioritize our commitment to restoration and healing for BIPOC staff, by creating intentional spaces for care and community, and centering our most marginalized colleagues and patients in our programming and initiatives.
-
Reviving Radical will provide ongoing inspiration for reckoning with our organization’s legacy and transforming our relationship with communities of color. In 2022, PPGNY will resume Reviving Radical community gatherings in Kingston, where we will listen, learn, and transform relationships within communities of color.
Advocacy
-
Our 2022 legislative priorities include: post-pregnancy Medicaid coverage, comprehensive sex education for grades K-12, insurance coverage for virtual health care, insurance coverage for abortion, improved health care and rights for incarcerated women, a state Equal Rights Amendment, and legal representation for undocumented persons facing proceedings.