Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month

Well I'm feeling way too tired to blog(which is why I haven't in quite a while) but my alternative is folding laundry, so here I am. My boss has been making comments all year about how busy the end of the school year is, but I just didn't believe her. I believe her.

May is Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month and to celebrate, my agency had a press conference last Wednesday. We had some awesome press coverage, including 2 local TV stations, Channel 4 and Channel 8. We also had a decent article in the Quad City Times and I've been told we were mentioned on 2 local radio stations. It was pretty darn exciting. I hope that people use it as an opportunity to talk to the kids in their lives about relationships, sex and boundaries. (Hint, Hint! Stop reading this and go talk to your kids!)

The issue really is a big one, despite the common perception that it is not any more. The teen birth rate has gone down for the last 15 years or so, but from 2005-2006(most recent figures available), the national rate rose. No one knows for sure if this is a fluke or beginning of a turn around, but either way, its an indicator that we have to keep fighting to educate our young people and empower them to make good choices. I believe that in fighting against teen pregnancy, I'm also fighting poverty, disenfranchisement and drug abuse. 60% of teen moms drop out of school, 75% of them wind up on welfare or other government assistance and their children's futures are even more bleak. They are twice as likely to deal with abuse or neglect, their sons twice as likely to do prison time and daughters three times as likely to be teen moms, when compared to children born to older parents. WE HAVE TO STOP THIS CYCLE. all of these issues are interrelated, we have to help kids avoid starting on the path of bad choices.


In other news, I gave a full day of workshops on Sexual Harrassment to 7th & 8th Graders today, will be leading a discussion & viewing of the movie "Juno" tomorrow, attending a conference in Des Moines on Thursday and going on 3 field trips next week. Also had a file review last week(meaning ALL paperwork had to be up to date...those who know me are shuddering or laughing), distributed posters for TPP month to over a dozen schools and agencies, our basement flooded(again) yesterday and I've been having my "normal" workload of home visits and Survival groups. So please do forgive me if I have ignored any emails or phone calls, I'll be back to normal operations in June. I swear.