DATE: Sunday, November 9, 1997              TAG: 9711070030

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion

SOURCE: BY ALYCIA THOMPSON-DICKENS 

                                            LENGTH:   42 lines

KEEP THE FAMILY LIFE PROGRAM

Recently, legislators talked of discontinuing the ``family life'' curriculum in Virginia. Virginians worked hard to get this program enacted.

With sexually transmitted disease (STD) rates on the rise, a teen pregnancy rate in the Eastern region that ranks highest in the state, and an AIDS infection rate growing in the South and among black women, this program is essential. It provides unbiased information in regard to choices about sex.

Additionally, HIV rates are increasing among adolescents. The money invested in this program is a mere fraction of that spent for the management and treatment of STDs, including HIV, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children, given to teen mothers to care for their children.

To prove how necessary programs like ``family life'' are, organizations such as The American Nurses Association (ANA) pour money into model prevention programs. The ANA/Foundations Nurse's Campaign to Reduce Adolescent High Risk Behaviors has awarded 10 minigrants of $9,000 each to school-based programs throughout the country. Arlington is one of the grant recipients.

Another show of support are the federal fellowships offered to nurse practitioner students and medical residents to attend ``Adolescent Reproductive Health '97.'' This program features timely and relevant presentations on urban adolescent HIV and health risk behaviors, adolescent eating disorders, adolescent sexuality screening and how teens view health-care providers.

Adolescence is a very difficult time with issues of body image, peer pressure and risk-taking impairing good judgment. We can help our children through this vulnerable period by giving them accurate and relevant information about issues of sex.

Discontinuing the family life program decreases access to accurate and appropriate information, which decreases the chance of making intelligent choices.

Education about risk behaviors has proved to be a powerful preventive tool in regard to STD/HIV. Virginians need to move forward with this effort. MEMO: Alycia Thompson-Dickens is a Hampton University graduate student

in nursing and a staff nurse at the Medical College of Virginia.

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