Connect for Success Initiative: Expanding Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Supports for Community College Students
In August 2023, IWPR launched the Connect for Success Initiative (CSI). This national research and learning initiative will study and expand sustainable partnerships and service delivery models to meet community college students’ SRH needs through grantmaking and a learning community. Through this initiative, IWPR will provide grant funding for up to 20 grantees that have existing programs providing SRH care and support to community college students, especially those from underserved backgrounds.
IWPR will work closely with grantees during the two-year grant period to document, understand, and synthesize lessons learned and promising practices to facilitate the expansion of SRH supports to more students in more colleges. It will also convene stakeholders (program implementers, community partners, policymakers, college administrators, faculty, staff, and students) to share knowledge, build relationships, and identify and seize upon opportunities for bolstering SRH services and supports for community college student success.
Click below to learn about the goals and objectives of Connect for Success.
Connect for Success Initiative: Expanding Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Supports for Community College Students
Connect for Success Initiative: Expanding Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Supports for Community College Students About the Grantmaking Program The purpose of the Connect for Success grantmaking program is to engage with existing community college sexual and reproductive health programs [...]
Centering the Student Voice: Community Colleges and Sexual and Reproductive Health Access in Texas and Mississippi
Community college students’ lives outside of the classroom—including their sexual and reproductive health— can directly impact their ability to succeed in school, yet most community colleges do not provide sexual and reproductive health services (Bernstein and Reichlin Cruse 2020). Growing efforts to implement holistic approaches to student success also often ignore the role that sexual and reproductive health outcomes can play students’ academic careers.
Improving Success in Higher Education through Increased Access to Reproductive Health Services
Pregnancy and childbearing have implications for a number of economic and social outcomes, including educational attainment (Sonfield et al. 2013). Yet young people are often left without the knowledge and tools to make informed reproductive health decisions. The majority of adolescents and young adults are sexually active but many hold incorrect or limited information about how to effectively avoid unintended pregnancies.
