Listeners of KBBI know Claudia Haines from her year on the air hosting Radio Story Time. That was when she was a librarian at the Homer Public Library. Today, she’s the CEO of the Kachemak Bay Family Planning Clinic.
“I think my coworkers at the library have kind of said it best that this was a really good fit for a librarian in part, because it involves literacy, but just a different kind of literacy. And I think that clinic and the youth programs and the rec room are really about. Getting people connected with high quality information and this kind of evidence-informed information that, you know, empowers them to make really great decisions about their lives,” Haines said. “And that was really similar to the work that happens in the library. And so I'm really honored to be kind of looking at this community wellness web from just a different direction.”
Haines said the clinic is a great organization to be a part of.
“KBFPC became a nonprofit in the mid-80s, so it's been in the community for a really long time,” Haines said. “And it's kind of evolved into where we are now, which is a pretty robust clinic that provides, you know, reproductive health and sexual health care for people all throughout the Southern Kenai peninsula.”
The clinic has two healthcare providers and offers services five days a week. The clinic also operates The REC Room, for teens.
“The REC Room is really this youth resource and enrichment co-op, that's where the R-E-C comes from. And so the REC Room is part youth space, and then it's also the hub for the youth programs, which provide reproductive and sexual health in this kind of peer educator model,” she said.
The clinic is the only federal Title 10 grant recipient in the state currently, but Haines says its funding sources are many and varied.
“The idea behind the clinic is that we offer no cost, low cost services to people who need them so that none of the services are out of reach. Kind of this equitable access model. But we also do accept private insurance, medicaid and private pay, and that insurance and private pay revenue also helps fund the clinic as do donations that come through the pink flag campaign,” Haines said. “So for anyone who's seen pink flags at more than 60 businesses flying these pink flags during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so that money helps support the clinic. And we receive grants from the Alaska Run for Women. We received one from the Pride Foundation, so a lot of different funding sources.”
Haines says that during these pandemic times, preventative health care is vital.
“I'd love to remind people that preventative care is really important right now when the whole healthcare system is really being taxed and challenged. And part of when we expanded the clinic hours this summer and you know, added more access to provide with, with that idea and mind,” she said. “So that when we have preventative care it allows us to make decisions about our health that might in a way that's maybe more intentional and slightly less challenging.”
Haines says she misses Radio Story Time on KBBI, which was a kind of preventative mental health care that helped the community through a dark time in the first year of the pandemic.
