Q-C organization starts campaign to battle teen pregnancy
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By Kay Luna | Wednesday, May 07, 2008 |
The high school senior from East Moline blushed a little while talking about teen sex in front of a room full of adults.
But Adam Becht was not embarrassed to say this: He doesn’t want anything — especially getting someone pregnant — to derail his dreams of becoming the first person in his family to graduate from college.
“I’m not willing to let poor choices interfere with my future success,” the varsity athlete at United Township High School said. “Being a teen parent would put these dreams on hold.”
That kind of attitude is what Mary Ann McLeod, the community services director for Bethany Children & Family Services in Moline, wishes she could see in all the Quad-City teenagers with whom she works.
Instead, teens continue to become parents, with some giving birth as young as 13 years of age. That is especially happening in Rock Island County, where McLeod said she has noticed an increase in young teens having children over the past year.
So, the Bethany organization is appealing to all Quad-City residents to help prevent teen pregnancy, launching a campaign Wednesday in honor of National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Day.
The group hosted a news conference at its downtown Moline offices and planned to follow that up with the delivery of teen pregnancy-prevention posters to 33 area schools, 16 agencies that serve youth and 12 libraries, McLeod said.
It also will host several education sessions for parents, and others who work with children, about how to talk with children about sex.
Although the teen birth rate has steadily declined for the past 16 years in Rock Island County, a slight increase occurred on the national level during 2005-06. The Quad-City area also has seen a hike in the number of 13-year-olds having babies, McLeod said.
The consequences are sobering, she said, citing statistics that show only 40 percent of mothers who have children before they turn 18 years old complete high school. Daughters of teen moms are three times more likely to become a teen mom than other teens, she said, adding that sons of teen moms are twice as likely to end up in prison as other men.
More than 75 percent of unmarried teen moms will receive welfare within five years of their first child’s birth, and the children of teen parents are twice as likely to suffer from abuse and neglect as children born to older parents, she said.
“We need to come together,” McLeod added.
Tips for prevention
What can you do to help prevent teen pregnancy? Sally O’Donnell of School Health LINK, a not-for-profit clinic serving Rock Island County children of all ages, offers these suggestions:
Start talking about sex, using proper names for the reproductive organs, when children are young.
Talk honestly about sex and your expectations for your children’s lives; talk about their friends, peer pressure and role
models.
Supervise your children.
Get involved in your children’s school; know what’s going on there.
Encourage schools to start health education in kindergarten and continue through the high school years.
Give teens credit. “Not everybody’s having sex,” O’Donnell said.
Free training sessions
Are you interested in attending a free training session on how to talk to children about sex? Here is a list of the sessions scheduled this month:
For parents:
6:30 p.m. May 20 — Edgerton Women’s Health Services, 1510 E. Rusholme St., Davenport
9 a.m. May 22 — Bethany for Children & Families, 1202 W. 3rd St., Davenport
For staff members of area agencies that serve youth:
9:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 13, Scott County Health Department, 600 W. 4th St.,
Davenport
Noon May 20, Edgerton Women’s Health Services, 1510 E. Rusholme St., Davenport
For more information, call Mary Ann McLeod, community services director for Bethany, at (309) 736-6645 or e-mail her at mmcleod@bethany-qc.org.
Kay Luna can be contacted at
(563) 383-2323 or kluna@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
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