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Reasons for action: Unintended and teen pregnancies are associated with a higher incidence of low birthweight, a greater risk of serious and long-term illnesses and of developmental delays, lower levels of cognitive and educational attainment, lower levels of academic achievement, and higher levels of behavioral problems. Teen mothers are more likely to experience relationship instability and are less likely to cultivate stimulating home environments for their children. The problems associated with teenage motherhood, including a higher risk of child abuse, are particularly acute and harder to overcome for teenagers who are parenting more than one child.
Click here to view additional Rationale or Evidence of Effectiveness.
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All health care providers provide counseling on family planning options, including abstinence and birth control, to all women and men of reproductive age.
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| Through several outreach programs, including Teen Outreach, Adult Role Models (ARMS), and Gurlz Talk, Planned Parenthood of New York City engages community members as partners in efforts to reduce teen pregnancy and improve sexual health. Counselors work with families and individuals to remove financial barriers to services, which include reproductive health care, pregnancy testing, and STD and HIV testing. www.ppnyc.org
Durham County (NC) Health Department’s TEAS (Together Everyone Accomplishes Something) works with teenagers and their parents, guardians, or mentors to delay initiation of sexual activity, to promote contraceptive use in teens who are sexually active, to keep program participants enrolled in school, and to prevent their use of illegal drugs. www.co.durham.nc.us/common/db-dept.cfm?ID=25 | |
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Providers of family planning services offer a range reproductive services that are effective, affordable, and acceptable to a variety of actual and potential users. They provide these in settings, locations, at times and in ways that make them conveniently accessible and most likely to enable clients to choose and use with satisfaction contraception and other means of ensuring that pregnancies are intended.
- They provide culturally sensitive information
- They provide reproduction-related health education in a variety of forms (including information about both abstinence and contraception) appropriate to a variety of actual and potential users.
- They minimize barriers to family planning services and reproduction-related health education, through outreach and other means.
Local organizations promote positive alternatives to early childbearing aimed at postponing both first and subsequent pregnancies.
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| The Children's Aid Society's Adolescent Sexuality and Pregnancy Prevention Program operates on the belief that success in school, meaningful employment, access to quality medical and mental health services, and interactions with high caliber, role-model adults have a potent contraceptive effect on teens. Initially launched in a community center in Harlem, the program has been adapted in 20 states. Services include employment experience, individual academic assessment, tutoring, homework help, assistance with college entrance, family life and sex education and self-expression through the arts and sports. www.stopteenpregnancy.com
The Best Friends Program targets girls ages 12-18 with messages about abstaining from sex until marriage and avoiding illegal drug and alcohol use. Best Friends’ activities help adolescent girls develop skills necessary to avoid at-risk behaviors and to become socially competent individuals and valued members of society. www.bestfriendsfoundation.org | |
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Local coalitions monitor programs and outcomes for an entire population, neighborhood, or community. They scan what is available and what is missing to support intended, well-timed pregnancies. They take steps to fill in the gaps.
Community-based organizations join forces to develop programs that reduce teen births and related risk behaviors and increase the proportion of youth who can avoid teen pregnancy.
Local collaboratives ensure that a range of counseling and mental health services is available to women facing unplanned or unwanted pregnancies.
Local coalitions keep funders and policymakers informed about barriers to effective action that require solutions at the funding, policy, or regulatory level. Local coalitions work with a variety of organizations and agencies to develop community-wide public education campaigns that emphasize the importance of:
- All births being intended and wanted
- Postponing pregnancies until parents are ready for parenthood
- Promoting the idea of childbearing as an undertaking for adults; discouraging early, unmarried childbearing
- Understanding the responsibilities involved in parenting and in meeting the needs of dependent children
- Women being in good health before becoming pregnant
- Recognizing early signs of pregnancy
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| Plain Talk is a neighborhood-based initiative that was implemented in Atlanta, San Diego, Seattle, New Orleans, and Hartford to help adults, parents, and community leaders communicate effectively with adolescents about reducing sexual risk-taking. Each Plain Talk community developed strategies suitable to its own cultures and circumstances. www.aecf.org/initiatives/plaintalk/index.htm
Planned Parenthood Golden Gate’s Promotoras Program, operating in the San Francisco Bay Area, is an education and medical outreach program in which trained, neighborhood-based Latina adults share information about reproductive health and sexuality with other Latinas. Promotoras are trained to distribute non-prescription birth control, talk with peers, and escort women to the clinic. Outreach happens during “platicas” (small talks) and in homes and other familiar settings. www.ppgg.org | |
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Public and private funders minimize barriers to reproductive health services by working to:
- Simplify health insurance eligibility and enrollment processes
- Expand eligibility for affordable health insurance
- Advocate for comprehensive coverage of a variety of family planning and other reproductive services, by public and private health insurers
Public and private funders make resources available in amounts and on terms that ensure a variety of family planning and other reproductive services can be offered in settings, locations, and times that are appropriate and acceptable to a variety of users.
Public and private funders make resources available so service providers can give clients (including minors) culturally sensitive information and can minimize barriers to family planning services and reproduction-related health education, through outreach and other means.
Public and private funders make resources available so agencies and institutions can provide reproduction-related health education in a variety of forms (including information about abstinence and contraception) appropriate to a variety of actual and potential users.
Policymakers minimize barriers to reproductive health services by:
- Modifying policies as necessary to support comprehensive coverage of family planning and reproductive services, by public and private health insurers
- Modifying policies as necessary to ensure that a full spectrum of reproductive health services is available in the community
- Simplifying health insurance eligibility and enrollment processes
- Expanding eligibility for affordable health insurance
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