Mission and History

Mission

We provide quality, sensitive, and affordable clinical care, education and advocacy.

We believe everyone should have access to confidential reproductive health care and the opportunity to make informed choices.

In all aspects of our work we encourage relationships that are respectful and that value sexuality as an integral part of life.

History

In 1972, the Supreme Court extended the right to use contraceptives to single people, and by the end of the year the NSRFPC was serving almost 2,000 active clients.

The following year, new centers opened at hospitals in Gloucester, Salem, and Stoneham. Health services were provided by physicians who volunteered their time.

While support for family planning for all was growing in the area, the national Association of Broadcasters temporarily banned contraceptive advertising in 1976.

In 1977, NSRFPC’s first sexuality education program was launched in Lynn. In conjunction with this, medical exams became available to teenagers with parental consent.

There were some clinic closings and other openings. By the end of the decade, medical services were being offered in Medford, Peabody, Beverly, Lynn, and Malden, in a combination of hospital and community health center settings. Counseling took place in Danvers, Salem, and Gloucester.

Increasingly, a shortage of physician volunteers lead to the emergence of nurses as lead clinicians, trained as nurse practitioners and certified as family planning instructors. Services broaden from family planning to reproductive and preventive health care as HQ offers breast exams, pap smears, and venereal disease (VD) screening and treatment.

In 1981, the Peabody and Medford sites close, and a new clinic opens in Reading. Two years later, administrative headquarters open at the current address - 19 Broadway, Beverly - and soon after the clinic moved from Beverly Hospital to this address, increasing patient volume in the process.

The agency changed its name to Health Quarters in 1986 and the following year HQ was chosen by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to open in Beverly the first anonymous HIV testing and counseling site on the North Shore.

In 1989, current HQ Executive Director Lianne Cook was hired, and quickly had to manage a 35% cut in state funding. On the federal level, the decade had seen a 66% decrease in Title X funding (through cuts and inflation).

National wrangling over the constitutionality of the “Gag Rule,” which prevents family planning providers from mentioning abortion in their pregnancy options counseling, occupies staff for close to five years. HQ never had to implement the rule, as President Clinton’s election in 1992 ensured its removal as a condition of Title X funding.

In the early 1990’s, the Salem clinic closed and the Malden clinic moved out of its hospital setting. Medical services continue to evolve from contraception only to almost half of patients seeking treatment for general medical issues. One million dollars in state funding is restored, returning budgets to 1989 levels.

HQ receives the contract to provide Title X-funded services for the entire Northeastern region in 1994 and relationships were established with community health centers in Lowell, Lawrence, Chelsea and Revere. HQ resumes clinical services to Gloucester at Addison-Gilbert Hospital.

Community education staff continues to grow and reach expands to substance abuse centers, youth groups, and shelters.

In 1996, HQ opens a DPH-funded STD clinic in Lynn and a clinic in Haverhill, increasing its presence in the Merrimack Valley.

The following year, HQ increased its capacity to meet men’s needs with an “It’s Not Just A Girl Thing” condom use campaign and enhancement of STD and vasectomy services.

HQ’s current medical director Louis DiLillo, M.D., a Beverly-based OB/GYN, joins the staff in 1998. Every birth control method is now available at HQ. The expansion of Medicaid leads to a doubling of revenue, bringing HQ’s budget to more than $2 million.

Due to a state recession in 2001, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health received severe cuts, resulting in a 38% reduction in HQ’s operating revenue. Within the next two years, community education, HIV counseling and testing, and STD treatment services were gravely impacted. HQ was forced to close the Malden clinic, eliminate the STD clinic, and reduce outreach staff from seven full-time educators and nine peer educators to one educator.

HQ expanded its service into weekends and holidays with the establishment of the EC On-Call line in 2002. Hundreds of callers from around Massachusetts can receive a phone consultation and prescription for emergency contraception (Plan B), thereby averting unintended pregnancy.

In 2004, HQ services offered at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center were transferred to a free-standing HQ family planning clinic, and, the following year, the HQ health center at Lynn Community Health Center evolved into an HQ delegate relationship.

HQ received a five-year grant from MADPH to administer a Teen Outreach Program in Salem in 2006, which teaches at-risk teens life development skills that can help prevent pregnancy. Also, HQ received the contract for an STD clinic in Haverhill to serve the Northeast region of the state.