Chief Sealth International is a Seattle public school in the diverse neighborhood of Delridge, on the southwest end of the city. It’s a modern building, airy and light-filled, and the surprisingly buoyant mood set by gleefully yelling teenagers almost makes you forget how awful high school actually is. Unassumingly perched over the atrium is the school-based health center, where the students can get treatment for sore throats (both feigned and not), bandages for sprained ankles, and IUDs.

At the end of 2009, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists formally recommended long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) — IUDs and hormonal implants — as the most effective ways for teen girls to avoid unintended pregnancy, and Seattle’s public health department quickly decided that they should be available in school-based clinics. (These clinics, which have also provided other forms of birth control to students since the mid 1990s, are funded by a city-wide Families and Education Levy, which voters have supported since 1991.)

Neighborcare Health, which runs nonprofit medical and dental clinics in Seattle for low-income and uninsured families and individuals, was the first organization to step up to the plate and provide LARC placement services in certain Seattle public high schools and middle schools, where it sponsors the school-based health centers — and within just a few months of the ACOG recommendation, the first Seattle public school student got a Nexplanon hormonal implant through the program.

LARCs, because they’re meant to last for so long, are the most expensive forms of birth control available. But free, in-school LARC placement is made possible in part by Take Charge, a Washington State Medicaid program that’s specifically targeted toward minors seeking contraceptive services. Because of Take Charge, girls under 19 who don’t want to use their parents’ private insurance to get birth control have a way to get contraception in school at no cost.

More: http://grist.org/living/a-seattle-high-school-is-taking-birth-control-access-to-the-next-level/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=EDIT%20Weekly&utm_campaign=weekly