School Based Health Centers (SBHCs) are teen-friendly community resources currently underutilized in efforts to prevent teen pregnancy. Much of the decline in the teen birth rate has been attributed to increased access and use of contraception by adolescents. Yet 60% of SBHCs nationwide, which provide health care services to adolescents, are prohibited from prescribing and/or dispensing contraception. Pregnancy prevention efforts targeting increased contraceptive availability and accessibility are likely to be enhanced by changing existing policies that restrict contraceptive services to adolescents through SBHCs nationwide. This article describes a successful community-based effort to change school district policy to provide contraceptive access through the SBHCs. The Transtheoretical model (TM) is applied retrospectively to describe this change process and provides a useful framework for nurses to consider in guiding community health policy initiatives.
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