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Grants aid in teen pregnancy awareness
Indiana uses money for teen pregnancy awareness programs
By Meg Woods
Published April 24, 2007
Once a semester, David Miller walks down a tiled high school hallway to arrive at freshman health classes. He is a speaker for the prevention of teen pregnancy through abstinence. Miller is not just another lecturer telling teens not to have sex. He happens to be a high school student himself.
Some students listen to his views of sex, others don’t, but the Brown County High School senior’s main goal is to inspire peers to be abstinent like seniors inspired him when he was a freshman.
He does a skit with another leader and they try to be funny. The more entertaining he is, the more the freshmen listen to what he has to say, he said. He tries not to be bland or to read off the slides because he believes in what he is saying, Miller said.
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| Photo by Meg Woods |
| A bus waits outside of Brown County High School for the end of the school day. |
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At BCHS, students find many things that are indicative of a high school: dimly-lit hallways, slamming lockers and yellow school buses. Peer speakers like Miller stand apart from all things typical.
Miller is a youth speaker for The Peers Project, an abstinence program supported by Brown County Schools. He travels with other student speakers to talk about waiting for sex. The classes use the peer speakers as a tool to relate to younger students.
“The program teaches loving others by waiting until marriage,” Miller said. “It leaves a piece of your heart there that you wait to give away.” He said the classes do an exercise of ripping off pieces of a paper heart to symbolize what happens when teens have sex with multiple partners.
Because of students like Miller, a focus on abstinence and an availability of contraception education programs, students, teachers and parents are becoming more aware of the teen pregnancy issue.
The national teen pregnancy rate dropped 36 percent from 1990 to 2002, according to facts gathered by the Alan Guttmacher Institute in 2006. Indiana’s teen pregnancy rate fell 22 percent from 1992 to 2000.
Abstinence programs in Indiana similar to Peers Project vary by county and receive federal funding to support youth education about abstaining from sexual activity.
"I would be committed to this sort of lifestyle even if there wasn’t a program for it."
-David Miller |
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Luanne Hendricks, registered nurse and Peers Project Coordinator for Brown County High School has applied for such grants since 2002. She has put the money into Peers Project, scribbling down her ideas in her little office located in the middle of BCHS. One program Hendricks applied for is the Indiana RESPECT grant.
Indiana’s RESPECT, Reducing Early Sex and Pregnancy by Educating Children and Teens, supports teaching Indiana youth the possible negative outcomes of having sex before marriage. The program was created in the mid 80s to confront the teen pregnancy issue.
“We are teaching kids not to have (unsafe) sex,” Hendricks said. “(…) To teach kids how to practice safe sex is lowering the bar for students because there are too many consequences that are a result of that.”
Indiana RESPECT is a state and federally funded program that gives money to schools, youth organizations and churches to enable them to educate about ways to prevent teen pregnancy. Although the programs promote sexual abstinence, Indiana RESPECT will give money to programs that stress abstaining from sex but educate about methods of contraception.
“We use abstinence only (in Brown County), but we talk about condoms, and we talk about the issues.” Hendricks said. “(We) believe that abstinence until marriage is just the best way around, heath wise, socially, emotionally, the whole thing.”
Stephanie Woodcox, RESPECT program coordinator and adolescent health coordinator for the Indiana State Department of Health said school funding is granted to youth organizations after an application is submitted.
Churches and YMCAs can also apply for program funding, Woodcox said. The funding is granted to programs educating students from fourth grade to high school, she said.
“When we put out the information, we open it to everyone,” she said. “It is a local decision within the school district. The county decides how the funding will be used whether it be sex education programs or abstinence programs. Some counties want abstinent only education. Other counties want sex education programs.”
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-Indiana Birth Rates according to the Indiana State Dept. of Heath Natality Report in 1994 were 1.1 for women between the ages of 10 and 14 and 57.7 for women between the ages of 15-19.
-In 2004, Indiana Birth Rates were .05 for women between the ages of 10 to 14 and 43.5 for women between the ages of 15 and 19.
- Government began funding abstinence education through Congress and the DHHS, Department of Health and Human Services, in 1996 as a means to reduce the U.S. pregnancy rates.
-In 2001, 17.1 percent of abortions in Indiana were performed on women ages 10-19, according to the Indiana 2001 Induced Termination of Pregnancy Report, on the Indiana State Department of Health Website.
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According to the Indiana State Department of Health, in 2006 and 2007, Indiana RESPECT will use $565,555 of “adolescent pregnancy prevention funds” and $754,073 of “federal sexual abstinence funds educational block grant funds.”
Planned Parenthood equips young teens with sex education knowledge through its peer education program, said Leslie Montgomery, director of programs for Planned Parenthood of Indiana. Its program teaches accurate sex education that Planned Parenthood expects will be related to a participant’s friends through word of mouth, she said.
Teen pregnancy is always a concern in Indiana and in the entire U.S., Montgomery said.
“I read somewhere today that Indiana has around the 31st highest pregnancy rate,” she said. “That’s concerning because we want young people to accomplish goals.”
“There have been declines in teen pregnancy in Indiana since the mid 90s.” Woodcox said. “(The RESPECT program) has been doing good work to inform teens.”
Parents are also being included in the information process, Hendricks said. Peers Project sends out blue tri-fold pamphlets called “Partnering with Parents.” The pamphlets inform parents about the abstinence program and how they can be involved in their child’s sex education.
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Student leaders provide abstinence education at Brown County High School as a way to connect with students on a peer-to-peer level.
The Peers Project is an abstinence-based program that is a series of three presentations given to health classes from freshman to senior-aged peer leaders. The program in Brown County is part of the curriculum and includes four levels of classes ranging from sixth grade to high school health classes.
Eve Jackson started Peers Project in 1994. The program was started at Brown County High School in 2002.
“(Jackson) first started it in the area in schools around Indianapolis and it has, since then, branched out with a federal grant from the government to do this,” Luanne Hendricks said.
Hendricks is a registered nurse contracted by Brown County High School who conducts the program, she said. The school has received grants from the state for the past four years, and the 2008 grant is pending, Hendricks said.
Four satellite schools use the Peers Project program. Hendricks brings peer leaders to schools in those four places as well as Brown County High School.
“I’ve gotten all positive feedback as far as parents who comment on our program,” Hendricks said. “You know, we are not only helping kids make good decisions. We have kids here in the high school who are recognized for being leaders in their school.”
David Miller is a Brown County High School senior who is a speaker for the program. He would live an abstinent life until marriage even if the program was not implemented in his school, he said.
“The kids look up to (the peer leaders),” Hendricks said. “They know they have chosen to be abstinent because they are a part of this program, and we help strengthen their stand in being abstinent by having the program here. It’s all been really positive.”
“Everybody is receptive. We ask review questions and give candy out at the end, which helps keeps students involved,” she said.
For some students, the Peers Project abstinence education goes in one ear and out the other, Miller said. But others gain important knowledge from the classes, and like Miller, are inspired to let other students know about the abstinent way of life, he said. |
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In 2000, there were 16,020 teen pregnancies in Indiana out of 821,810 pregnancies in the United States as a whole, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
“Teen pregnancy has been one of those health issues that has not been so good, and the state received funds to do these programs as a result of that,” Woodcox said. “I’ve known people who have gone into these places. You see it from a different perspective going into a community. It’s a greater issue than sitting back and looking at the numbers. The program funds will definitely help the situation.”
Both Monroe and Brown Counties have significantly reduced the rate of pregnancy to unmarried parents, according to the Indiana Department of Health 2004 Natality Report.
When it comes to teen pregnancy at Brown County High School, some pregnant teens stay in school and some drop out, Miller said.
“Abortion is the bigger problem, not teen pregnancies,” Miller said. “It is a bigger issue more and more with younger kids. Every month or so, you hear about another girl who has gotten an abortion.”
Some IU students raised outside of Indiana feel that where you grow up has a lot to do with how you view issues of teen pregnancy.
“It has to do with culture,” said Jaclyn Bober, IU sophomore and education major. “Where I grew up, teens just don’t get pregnant. We have health class stressing abstinence, but not sex education. Where I come from, we have a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.”
Bober grew up in a suburb west of Chicago that for the most part consists of white-collared job holders, she said.
To hear more from Luanne Hendricks about Peers Project, click here. |
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Hendricks believes the solution to the teen pregnancy issue is role models.
If kids are listening to their peers and those peers believe what they are talking about, then the kids are more apt to accept what peer leaders have to say, Hendricks said.
“Personally, I think (teen pregnancy) is a big issue kids experience at such a young age today,” Woodcox said. “The program is reaching out to kids when they are younger so when that time comes that they have to decide, they can make the right choices.”
As for Miller, his choice for preventing teen pregnancy is abstinence.
“I would be committed to this sort of lifestyle even if there wasn’t a program for it,” Miller said.
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