“Keitra intertwines her passion for reproductive justice and person-centered care by aiding women impacted by substance use disorders. She works to integrate trauma-informed family planning education and clinical services into treatment programs.”

– Marlena Dobbs, US Army Captain at United States Army

Describe your contributions to and achievements in family planning.

Teaching reproductive health education classes to survivors of sex-trafficking led me to consider the unmet, yet desired, needs of women involved in the criminal justice system and those with substance use disorders. I helped implement a reproductive health access project across four substance use treatment facilities in my city. I also served as a research assistant to assess the reproductive health needs of women in a local jail. As a nurse practitioner at a community clinic, I provide daily, non-coercive family planning counsel to adolescent and adult patients. Most significantly, I am implementing and evaluating an ongoing family planning QI initiative at a family drug court–creating avenues of access for women dealing with social, structural, and personal barriers to health care.

What sparked your passion for family planning?

The lived experience and desires of mothers of infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome brought me to family planning. It exposed me to the range of family planning taboos within marginalized communities, forcing me to consider the role of reconciliation and validation in family planning discourse as well as poverty across the life course. Comprehensive family planning has become a tool for social justice reform to address the intersection of maternal-infant mortality, poverty, and trauma.

Give one or two examples of how you display leadership in your family planning work.:

1) I am leading efforts to integrate trauma-informed family planning education and clinical services into a family drug court. This has yet to be done before in my state or by faculty/staff at my organization. I have been invited to present at state, national, and international conferences about such work

2) I am a newly selected member of Power to Decide’s National Cadre of Trainers to advance reproductive justice for women in clinical and non-clinical settings with use of “One Key Question”

If you are named a winner of 120 under 40, how will you use this new platform and the $1000 grant to advance your work? 

If selected as a winner of 120 under 40, I will use this new platform to advocate for the importance of integrated models of care to help vulnerable girls and women reach their full potential with increased access to person-centered family planning care. I would use the grant funding to continue my programming efforts at the family drug court with improvements to the continuity of care and services offered. I would also like to evaluate and meet the needs of court-involved males at the center.