Offering multiple health care services through a community-based program can benefit clients, providers and programs. Integrating services can address a wider range of health needs conveniently for clients. It also can be more efficient for programs and so can serve more people for the same expenditures. Services commonly integrated with family planning include HIV care and prevention; maternal, newborn, and child health care; child immunization services; and post abortion care services. Alternatively, FP can be integrated into non-health program such as environmental protection, water and sanitation, or micro-enterprise. FP integration with health and non-health sector programs offers an opportunity to enhance the work of other activities and interventions. It also capitalizes on existing programs and expands service delivery into underserved geographical areas.

When considering whether to integrate FP into a program you should:

• Identify a service entry point that will reach the appropriate target audience with a minimum of effort and will benefit both interventions, not just one.
• Identify training, management support, and commodities that are needed at all levels to ensure quality service delivery
• Calculate the costs and determine all resources needed to provide the additional service.
• Determine the impact of the new intervention on the existing program.

The documents in this section of the toolkit offer key information on integrating family planning into other health services. For a more comprehensive treatment of the topic of integrating family planning with other services, please also see the K4Health Family Planning and HIV Services Integration Toolkit, the FP and Immunization Integration Toolkit and the Maternal Infant Young Child Nutrition - Family Planning (MIYCN-FP) Integration Toolkit.