Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 7, 1994 TAG: 9409070124
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Roanoke City Teen Pregnancy Task Force subcommittee on Tuesday recommended distributing the money through three established pregnancy prevention programs, rejecting proposals by two other applicants.
The winners are:
The Roanoke Adolescent Health Partnership, which requested $70,000 to establish a student health center at William Fleming High School. The health center would be staffed by a full-time counselor and a nurse practitioner who would work through the 10-month school year.
The partnership also would seek to expand peer educator groups at Fleming and assist with family life studies in schools.
The Roanoke Health Department, which requested $42,900 to expand a program that emphasizes male responsibility in pregnancy prevention and establish paid "resource mothers" who would serve as parenting guides for teens with children and help them avoid subsequent pregnancies.
The Teen Outreach Program, which requested $43,600 to hire a social worker to meet with teens in their homes and expand an existing education program to 60 additional youths. Among other things, TOP gives teens "hands-on" experience by having them interact with children in nursery schools and adult patients in nursing homes.
Two groups the panel decided not to fund are the Crisis Pregnancy Center, an anti-abortion Christian ministry, and the West End Center, an after-school program for youths whose parents work.
The Crisis Pregnancy Center didn't have previous experience in pregnancy prevention programs for at-risk youths. The West End Center's proposal was lacking in specifics, said Linda Hodge and Kate Genaitis, two panel members who graded the proposals.
Because the chosen groups' requests total more than the committee has to spend, the subcommittee put off deciding who will get how much until later this month.
The three-year grant will fund $550,000 worth of pregnancy prevention in Roanoke, which in 1991 had the highest teen-pregnancy rate in the state. Funding initially will be $150,000, with the city getting $200,000 in fiscal 1995 and another $200,000 in fiscal 1996.
The initial outlay is lower because the programs won't be activated until next month. The first quarter of the budget year will have elapsed by then.
The panel, made up of pregnancy prevention professionals, was formed after state health officials told the city this year it was eligible for the aid but had to come up with ways to use it by this fall.
The group is separate from a task force composed primarily of residents, which is working on long-range prevention strategies.
by CNB