As a women's health doctor for more than 20 years I have taken thousands of Pap smears and taught many hundreds of doctors and nurses the skill of taking cells from the cervix and placing them on a glass slide.
The Pap smear detects pre-cancerous cellular changes and has been the cornerstone of the National Cervical Screening Program since its implementation in 1991. It has served Australian women extremely well and resulted in one of the lowest rates of cervical cancer in the world.
The ‘Council’ is what we call the governing body at SHFPACT, commonly called a board or committee in other organisations. Council members are elected by the membership to two-year terms at the Annual General Meeting, and then the specific office bearers are appointed at the first meeting of the Council following the AGM. Following last year’s annual general meeting, the following Council members and office bearers were elected:
Joanna Spratt (President)
Matt Sammels (Vice-President)
Sunny Lee (Treasurer)
Janelle Weissman (Secretary)
Alice Knight
Jane Hadrill
Camilla Burkot
Bronwyn Clark
Matthew Noonan
Members who are interested in contributing to the life of the organisation through the Council and its sub-committees can also be appointed to periodic vacancies. If you are interested, please get in touch with Executive Director Tim Bavinton by email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
SHFPACT is proud to work with Canberra schools and our collaborating partners to support school communities to be safe and inclusive places for same-sex attracted, intersex, and gender diverse students.
Sexual Health and Family Planning ACT (SHFPACT) has a long record of service provision and advocacy to meet the identified needs of same-sex attracted, sex- and gender-diverse Canberrans, and is proud of a longstanding commitment to gender equity in health, education and community services through our training programs for professionals in these industries.
For SHFPACT, the Safe Schools Coalition program represents a continuation and extension of this commitment to helping families as primary educators and schools as formal educators for Canberra's young people.
We are very pleased to see ACT Government funding support announced today by ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Minister for Education Shane Rattenbury.
SHFPACT has been the lead agency with many local community and health service partners in the delivery of the Safe Schools Coalition ACT program funded by the Commonwealth Government through the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA). Local partners include well-known and respected organisations like AIDS Action Council, A Gender Agenda, Northside Community Service, Belconnen Community Service, headspace Canberra, and Youth Coalition ACT.
The program has enjoyed the strong support of ACT Government, and other community and professional groups. SHFPACT Executive Director Tim Bavinton said, “The Canberra community is generally quite progressive, and the program has enjoyed positive community support in its goals to address prejudice and discrimination on the basis of sexuality, sex and gender identity in school communities. The Program has been delivered as a support to schools, with school leaders firmly in the driving seat about what kinds of support and resources they needed that reflected the particular needs of their school and community.”
Sexual Health and Family Planning ACT (SHFPACT) is a non-government, non-profit organisation working to improve reproductive and sexual health in the Canberra community.
We regret that it has been necessary to introduce a concessional fee rate to replace bulk-billed doctors appointments at the SHFPACT clinic.
Over the years, SHFPACT has tried to minimise the cost barriers to accessing the very high quality clinical services provided by our team of experienced doctors and nurses. For the last decade, the majority of our clinical services work has not been funded by the ACT Government. We receive a limited and fixed amount of funding from ACT Health to support free or low-cost clinical services for key priority groups, which is primarily provided through our outreach clinical programs in partnership with other health and community service providers, and by having free or low-cost consultations available at the SHFPACT clinic.
As a women's health doctor for more than 20 years I have taken thousands of Pap smears and taught many hundreds of doctors and nurses the skill of taking cells from the cervix and placing them on a glass slide.
SHFPACT is proud to work with Canberra schools and our collaborating partners to support school communities to be safe and inclusive places for same-sex attracted, intersex, and gender diverse students.