LOG IN   JOIN   BLOG SEARCH   ALL DIARIES

Website Blog
Blog
Issues
Take Action
Videos
Donate
About
Youth Resources
My Sistahs
Advocates For Youth
 
Blog - Amplify your voice

Sex Ed for Teens...through cell phones?
by: cwilliams
Saturday, May 2, 2009 at 4:14:00 PM EDT
Comments Comments (2)
Share this entry:  del.icio.us | Facebook |  MySpace | Digg It! | Tweet This

North Carolina recently instituted this pretty interesting program. ANyone (but especially teens) can text any and all of their questions about sex and sexuality to a specific cell phone, owned by the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina, and get a non-judgemental, comprehensive reply from an anonymous sex educator at the center.  Check out the full story from the New York Times.

Share this entry:  del.icio.us | Facebook |  MySpace | Digg It! | Tweet This
Comments
[Add New Comment]
Sex education in the classroom, say many epidemiologists and public health experts, is often ineffective or just insufficient. In many areas of the country, rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases remain constant or are even rising. North Carolina — where schools must teach an abstinence-only curriculum — has the country’s ninth-highest teenage pregnancy rate. Since 2003, when the state’s pregnancy rate declined to a low of 61 per 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19, the rates have slowly been climbing. In 2007, that rate rose to 63 per 1,000 girls — 19,615 pregnancies.


This is a great idea and it definitely is a good resource to have. However I think this article did a great job of pointing to how this program is an attempt to fight against the abstinence only education program and get crucial health information to young people. This is definitely a great program but its also good to look at it in the larger context that if we could get comprehensive sex education to young people we could probably lower these rates of teen pregnancy!

# Posted By  vanessaaishacoleman | 5/2/09 11:39 PM | Report | Reply
 Thanks for posting! I think that there's a great point made in this article -- it's hard to get good, non-judgmental info about sex, especially if your parents (and "sex ed" teacher) shut down at the first mention of sexuality. I wish this service had been available about 10 years ago!
# Posted By AFY_Meghan | 5/4/09 11:37 AM | Report | Reply
[Add New Comment]