The Center for Adolescent Health and the Baltimore City Health Department are partners in an intervention designed to both enhance the family planning clinic''s role and encourage parent involvement in adolescent contraceptive method choice and continuation. This intervention involves all female clients age <20 presenting to the Healthy Teens & Young Adults Center in Baltimore City over an 18 month period; project staff will provide individualized methods counseling and will contact each client at regular intervals beginning 2 weeks post-enrollment and then at least monthly to discuss issues such as side effects, method use, and appointment reminders. The intervention will employ innovative technological methods at its core. Clients will be able to choose from text messaging, email, and phone as means of clinic contact; these contacts will be scheduled, initiated, and recorded using a new web-based database designed for this project, enabling the clinic to provide regular, longitudinal follow-up. Clients will be encouraged to identify a parent/key adult to be invited to sessions with a health educator to learn about contraceptive options and communication techniques to reinforce their teen’s appropriate use of contraception and reproductive health services. Outcomes will include increasing the initiation and continued use of appropriate contraception, and reducing the rate of unintended pregnancy occurring within one year of enrollment. Overall, we hope to produce an easily replicable, technology based and adolescent-friendly means of continuing contact to enhance contraceptive protection among adolescents.

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