Summarize the role of social workers in providing family planning services.

Social workers are concerned about overpopulation-about the problems it is creating now and the even greater problems it may create in the future. In almost every social service agency, social workers come in contact with clients who want and need family planning information. Social workers also must respond to controversial issues: providing abortion information and making referrals, responding to those who advocate involuntary sterilization of people who have a severe inherited disability, and setting up family planning clinics in high schools so that contraceptive information and devices are more readily accessible to teenagers.

Social workers are increasingly employed in settings in which the primary service is family planning. Many roles in family planning are well suited for social workers: premarital counseling; pregnancy counseling; provision of contraceptive information including effectiveness and side effects of the varied approaches; sex education services; counseling about sexually transmitted diseases; AIDS education and counseling; abortion counseling; infertility counseling; and community planning efforts to develop family planning services and create a community atmosphere that is accepting of family planning as a legitimate service.

Social workers are being hired in specialized agencies that deal with family planning. These include Planned Parenthood, maternal and child health clinics, and agencies providing abortions and abortion counseling. School social workers have become increasingly involved in family planning activities in connection with sex education for sexually active teenagers. Social workers in single-parent units of social services departments (also called human services departments) also provide family planning services. Other settings in which social workers counsel on family planning include pediatrics and gynecology departments in hospitals and clinics, child welfare agencies, and residential treatment facilities for teenagers.