Expanding the providers share workshop model: A partnership with Planned Parenthood Federation of America Consortium of Abortion Providers
Abortion
Awarded 2011
Large Research Grants
Lisa Harris, MD, PhD
University of Michigan
$120,000

Our team’s goal is to strengthen human resources for abortion care. Outside of abortion, there is extensive literature documenting need for supportive interventions for workers in helping professions. Abortion providers face highly unique stresses, including being targets of stigma, violence, harassment, and restrictive legislation. To date, the focus of human resources for abortion care has been on educating and training new physician providers. Psychosocial needs of providers have received scant attention in the medical literature. However these psychosocial needs may be related to provision of abortion services after training. The needs of non-physician caregivers have received virtually no scholarly attention, but also may be an important abortion human resource issue. Previously we developed the Providers Share Workshop, a 5-session group workshop designed for abortion workers, to help alleviate some of the unique burdens of providing abortion care, in particular the burden of stigma. SFP funded a pilot study of Providers Share, well as a larger national study. Pilot and national data showed that participants find the workshop immensely valuable, and that it reduces the burden of abortion stigma that workers face, among other benefits. In the current project, we converted Providers Share from a research protocol to a “manualized” tool that can be used at any abortion-care site. We partnered with Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s (PPFA) Consortium of Abortion Providers to pilot and evaluate the revised workshop. We adapted the workshop to meet the logistical needs of PPFA affiliates, while maintaining the central components of its content; we trained a cadre of workshop facilitators; we recruited nineteen PPFA affiliates to participate in the workshop and complete pre- and post-workshop surveys; and we are currently completing data analysis to measure the impact of the workshop on individual workers as well as workplaces as a whole.