Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 5, 1993 TAG: 9312030141
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"I see it as an issue for the entire community. . . . And it's going to take a lot of creative thinking. The answers are here, they're right in front of us. We just can't see the trees for the forest."
We asked several people to engage in some creative thinking - to brainstorm strategies for reducing Roanoke's teen-pregnancy rate. Here are some of their ideas.
SUPERINTENDENT HARRIS: "All of us must reach out and say we'll work together," he says. Parents need classes to help them manage cantankerous kids. Kids need more supervised after-school activities - studies show most teen pregnancies occur between 3 and 5 p.m.
Employers could help by offering training for parents. As an incentive to attend, compensatory time off could be given to those who finish parenting programs.
Better family life education and on-site day care in the schools need to be examined, he says. "We have pregnant students who have got to be educated; we can't just stick our heads in the sand. We need to make them part of the solution, not the problem."
THE REV. NELSON HARRIS, School Board member and pastor of Ridgewood Baptist Church: "So many churches think it's the kids from the other side of the tracks," Harris says. "They're in denial. We're finding that the regular church attenders in our youth groups are as sexually active as those who aren't."
Ministers should respond by addressing the issue in the pulpit, as well as offering church members education materials on sexuality - aimed at abstinence. "On the other hand, we can't deny what's going on, so there's a real tension there," he says.
Churches also should support teen parents - "by being there to help, not to judge."
THE REV. CHARLES GREEN, president of the Roanoke branch, NAACP: "I think they ought to do like they did years ago: When these males are irresponsible and they father these kids but don't take care of them - put them in prison. Put them on a rock pile or a chain gang and let them work."
Overhaul the welfare system so there's more incentive for teen parents to work - and build self-esteem - rather than stay on Aid for Families and Dependent Children. "The minimum wage is $4.25. These girls can get $6 or more an hour doing what they're doing now when you consider all the benefits from ADC, WIC, Medicaid and food stamps. When you add it all up, why should they work all day flipping burgers when they can get all this?"
Instead of cutting them off welfare as soon as they get a job, let them stay on it until they get on their feet, Green says.
DR. DONALD STERN, departing Roanoke Health Department director: "We need to be as adamant about helping kids who aren't sexually active to stay abstinent as we are about making sure that sexually active kids have birth control."
The schools, social services, the Health Department - "we're in the role of surrogate parents now, and we're not telling them their options. The old thinking [not discussing abstinence] has gotten us in the trouble we're in."
More money needs to be spent on programs like CHIP, the Child Health Investment Partnership, which serves more than 1,000 Roanoke children by providing basic health care and family intervention services. "It's hard to get people to understand the relationship between stable families and reduced drug and alcohol abuse and teen pregnancy - because the results don't show till 10, 15 years down the road," Stern says.
Doctors who see adolescents need to take time out to discuss sex and drug use.
"If parents don't have time to talk about sex, and schools don't have time to talk about sex, and our churches and doctors don't have time to talk about sex, who's paying attention to our kids?"
DR. ELIZABETH ROYCROFT, Henry County Health Department director: "There is absolutely no contra-indication to pregnancy and childbirth. We give them rewards. We expect no support from daddy. We chauffeur them to doctor appointments, give them ADC and public housing."
Virginia should consider adopting legislation similar to a Wisconsin law, which places financial burden on the parents of both teens. "If you tell Grandma she's gonna have to fork over money when her daughter gets pregnant, she might have a greater interest in seeing what her daughter's doing after school . . .
"Man, these girls are entitled. They've got it coming to them. And we are destroying them. It may look like we're helping them, but it's not kind to accustom people to depend on welfare checks, WIC and public housing."
DENEEN EVANS, counselor for Roanoke's school-based health centers: "The black community especially needs a lot more positive black role models."
"For Males Only," a Health Department program targeting at-risk males, is wonderful, Evans says. But it's not enough - not consistent enough, not broad-based enough. Anthony Drakeford, who runs the program, works only part time with black males, at a cost of $8,000 a year.
"We need a dozen more Anthonys out there," Evans says. "A lot of the programs are focused on the girls, and it's sad for these boys. They're looking up to the drug dealers. Immediate gratification is it - in money, in sex. They don't know what it is to work toward a goal."
Schools need to form more peer groups - groups that would make abstinence trendy instead of sex. At Patrick Henry High School, "a couple of students here have made a choice not to be sexually active, and both have told me they'd be willing to be peer counselors," Evans says. She hopes the program will be implemented in January.
"The school may not be the ideal site" for teaching values or dispensing birth control prescriptions, she adds. "But for many it's the only place where they can get that kind of help."
TOMMY BARBER, Salem schools psychologist: "Somewhere along the line, there needs to be a marriage and parenting class. It's probably as important as civics, or that fifth year of English - and yet we don't get to that. We spend millions of dollars getting people ready to go to work, but nothing to get these kids ready for real life."
Parents need to monitor their kids' television habits, he adds. "We can't fathom the influence that TV has on our kids. It's basically teaching them to settle most problems with aggression, violence and sex."
by CNB