Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
May 1, 2008 issue
Online Quiz Designed to Get Teens Thinking Before Moment Occurs
Story by Corinne Saunders
Thirty-one percent of teenage girls get pregnant at least once before they reach age 20, and most of these pregnancies—82 percent—are unintended.
Nationally, teen pregnancies were dropping off until recent years, when the rate has leveled out. “It’s the national trend, but definitely also in the state and Watauga County,” said Rose Bridgeman, public awareness chair for the Adolescent Health Committee of Watauga County Healthy Carolinians.
The committee seeks to “make people aware, to not be complacent,” Bridgeman said, adding that teen pregnancy needs to be in the forefront of people’s minds. For this reason, the Adolescent Health Committee promotes the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
The most common reason teens of both sexes give for not using protection is that they were not planning to have sex; it “just happened.”
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy encourages teens across the country to click to the nonprofit organization’s website, www.stayteen.org, on Wednesday, May 7, and take a short, scenario-based quiz that is designed to make teens think about what they would do in sexual situations.
The National Day strives to confront the dangerous “it couldn’t happen to me” mentality by bringing the message that sex has consequences. The online quiz is appropriate for ages 13 and up and is available in both English and Spanish. It challenges the hundreds of thousands of teens who take it each year to think about what they might do in situations that become more-than-plausible scenarios for many of their peers.
The quiz helps teens realize the importance of avoiding too-early pregnancy and parenthood and design their own plans to prevent pregnancy before they become one of the 750,000 girls each year who become pregnant.
A nonpartisan initiative supported almost exclusively by private donations, the National Campaign seeks to promote values, behavior and policies that reduce both teen pregnancy and unplanned pregnancy among young adults. The organization believes that by increasing the percentage of children born into welcoming, intact families that are prepared to raise children, the nation will be strengthened and children will enjoy a higher quality of life.
More than 230 diverse national organizations and media outlets serve as official National Day partners by promoting the online quiz.
For a complete list of National Day partners and to learn how you can support the National Day, click to www.thenationalcampaign.org/national/default.aspx.
Locally, several year-round programs are related to preventing teen and unplanned pregnancies. On the opposite end of the spectrum, The Children’s Council organized a program for teens who have already had children.
This program focuses on helping teen mothers who got pregnant and had to drop out of school obtain their GEDs, said Catherine Scantlin, High Country Women’s Fund coordinator. The GED class is a team effort among several local organizations. “Grace Lutheran provides the space, [Caldwell] Community College donates the instructor and [the High Country Women’s Fund] provides childcare one morning; The Children’s Council provides it the other morning,” Scantlin said.
More than just a GED program, the class also focuses on empowerment for the teen mothers, she added. For more information about the High Country Women’s Fund, call 828-265-2111.
Other programs in the community focus on education and preventing pregnancy.
The Adolescent Health Committee funds the Baby Think It Over program for ninth grade students enrolled in the Healthful Living course at Watauga High School. Students take home computerized babies that cry when they need to be fed or have a diaper changed; students must meet their needs and write a paper on their experiences afterward.
“We’re out there for the prevention of [pregnancy],” said Rose Bridgeman, public awareness chair for the Adolescent Health Committee. The committee advocates against not only teen pregnancy, but also any unplanned pregnancy that happens before parents are “financially and educationally able to take care of their child.”
“The Adolescent Health Committee believes that parents should be the primary educators of their children,” Bridgeman said. “We encourage [parents] to communicate with their children about sexuality issues and other high-risk activities. If they start talking about these issues when [the children are] young, it will be easier [to keep talking about them] as they grow up.” For more information about the Adolescent Health Committee, call 828-268-8961 or click to www.healthywatauga.org/index.php.
A relatively new group serving Watauga, Ashe and Avery counties, the Appalachian Women’s Fund is currently accepting grant applications for funding that will be distributed in the fall, and preventive initiatives for teen pregnancies are among the programs the group wishes to support.
“We are a group of women who fund programs to assist girls,” said Nancy Ashline, a founding leader of Appalachian Women’s Fund.
The group recently began a junior membership network on Facebook, and Ashline’s daughter at ASU serves as the junior membership chair. This network allows girls ages 16 to 22 to talk to each other, as well as to share their insights with the Appalachian Women’s Fund, Ashline said.
“[The network] has only been in operation a week and we already have 22 members,” she added.
The fund seeks to empower women and girls and “concentrate on young girls before they start going down a bad road,” Ashline said. “A lot of girls have difficulty seeing themselves in the correct light; they’re bombarded every day by media that is trying to tear them down. We’re trying to build them up [and] the whole point is to help them move out of a bad situation or don’t ever get in one.”
The fund also supports local programs designed to inform. “OASIS has a program that not only helps girls but also informs boys of girls’ rights,” Ashline said. The program is designed to “build self-esteem and self-confidence [and] teach about the importance of not getting pregnant for future success.” For more information about the Appalachian Women’s Fund or for grant applications, click to www.appalachianwomensfund.org.