For more than 50 years, Title X Family Planning has been helping individuals and families across the United States access health care, information and resources to make decisions about if, when and how many children they want to have.
The story of Title X began in the 1960s, when the federal government began investing in family planning services as part of efforts to improve health and economic opportunity for families. In 1970, Congress established Title X of the Public Health Service Act, creating the nation’s first, and still only, federal grant program dedicated solely to family planning and related preventive health services.
The idea behind the program was simple: people should have access to reliable health information and voluntary health care, regardless of their ability to pay.
Today, Title X-supported health centers provide services that go well beyond birth control. Depending on the clinic, services can include pregnancy testing and counseling, contraceptive services, preconception care, basic infertility services, sexually transmitted infection and HIV testing and treatment, cervical cancer screening and other preventive health services. Services are voluntary and confidential, with fees generally based on income and family size.
Over the decades, Title X has become an important part of the nation’s public health safety net. For some patients, a Title X clinic may be their regular source of health care. For others, it may be the place they turn when they are uninsured, between jobs, beginning a family, trying to prevent a pregnancy, or simply looking for answers to questions about their health.
Title X in Wyoming
Wyoming has been part of that history for decades.
The Wyoming Health Council (WHC) became the statewide administrator of the federal Title X Family Planning Program in 1990. Since then, WHC has worked with health departments, nonprofit organizations and other community-based providers to make family planning and preventive health services available to people across the state.
That statewide network is especially important in Wyoming, where communities are spread across a large geographic area. Today, Wyoming has seven Title X family planning clinics and two satellite locations serving communities from the northwest to the southeast and from the Bighorn Basin to southwest Wyoming.
The Wyoming Health Council’s Title X network serves thousands of Wyoming residents each year. Current federal data show that the network provides thousands of family planning visits annually, along with testing and screening for sexually transmitted infections, HIV and cervical cancer. From 2022–2025, for example, Wyoming Title X providers recorded nearly 18,980 family planning encounters.
But numbers only tell part of the story.
Behind every visit is a person, someone looking for an affordable contraceptive option, a young adult seeking confidential STI testing, a couple preparing for pregnancy, a patient needing a cancer screening, or a parent trying to plan for the future.
That’s what has kept Title X relevant for more than five decades: the program is not about telling people what choices to make. It is about making sure people have access to information, health care and support so they can make those decisions for themselves.
Title X also has clear boundaries. Federal law prohibits Title X funds from being used to perform, promote or fund abortion as a method of family planning. Instead, Title X focuses on voluntary family planning and related preventive health services.
In Wyoming, that work continues through local clinics and the health professionals who know their communities best. From a teenager with a question to a couple planning their next chapter, Title X clinics provide a place where people can receive information, ask questions and take care of their health.
After more than 50 years, the program’s purpose remains remarkably consistent: helping people make informed decisions about their health and their families, while making quality care more accessible to the communities that need it.
And in a state as geographically large and diverse as Wyoming, having that care available close to home can make all the difference.
Interested in joining the Wyoming Health Council Title X Family Planning Network?
The Wyoming Health Council (WHC) is accepting applications from qualified organizations interested in joining the WHC Title X Family Planning Network for the five-year project period of April 1, 2027–March 31, 2032.
Public and private organizations, including current Title X subrecipients and organizations not currently contracted with WHC, are invited to apply.
Key Dates:
• Application Released: September 15, 2026
• Technical Assistance Webinar: September 28, 2026
• Application Deadline: October 19, 2026
Learn more and access the full RFA: WYHC.ORG
This project is supported by the Office of Populations Affairs (OPA) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award 1 FPHPA 006541-0-00 totaling $924,108 with 100 percent funded by OPA/OASH/HHS. The contents are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by OPA/OASH/HHS or the U.S. Government.
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