California Family Health Council, Inc.

The Open Doors Intern Program

CFHC is helping students build a bright future for family planning, providing paid field placements in reproductive health care and family planning agencies in California. Participants can choose from over 90 possible placement sites in rural or urban settings in County Health Departments, Community Clinics, Free Clinics, or Family Planning Clinics. Recruitment of minority students is a program priority. (Referrals can be made for placements in Arizona, Nevada, and Hawaii, but placements would not be through the Open Doors Program and stipends are not guarenteed.)

The Open Doors Program is a project of the California Family Health Council, Inc. in cooperation with over forty participating health care and family planning providers. The program is supported by funding from the Kaiser Permanente Foundation.

Career Track Opportunities

For graduate students in public health, health science, education, communications and related fields, the program benefits include:

• Stipends are available based on the total hours the student works in the agency
• Year round placements with flexible hours
• Opportunities to develop relationships with professionals in the field
• Opportunities to serve in ethnically and culturally diverse communities
• Real life experience in all aspects of the field of reproductive health care

Since its inception in 1991, over 400 highly motivated students have been placed in internships. Participating agencies have benefited from more than 185,000 hours of work performed by interns and dozens of interns have gained employment with their placement agencies. Others have secured employment in other family planning agencies: 95% of program participants have gone on to pursue careers in the field of public health.