Community Leaders' Breakfast 2007

Durham Coalition on Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (DCAPP) held another successful annual Community Leaders' Breakfast on Wednesday, September 19th at the Hayti Heritage Center. Many local agencies attended and the discussion and information exchange was very interesting and lively.

Several DCAPP members discussed current issues and themes in adolescent pregnancy prevention in Durham at this annual event. Annette Carrington, DCAPP President, started the breakfast by informing the group that the equivalent of ten full school buses of teenaged girls gets pregnant in Durham each year. There has been an increase in repeat pregnancies, and an increase in pregnancies among Latina or Latino teens, despite the fact that teen pregnancy overall in Durham has decreased.

Clementine Buford opened with a welcome to all participants.

Kate Rademacher, Women's Center staff member, described her work educating teens on "media literacy," and how to incorporate media literacy into pregnancy prevention messages. She focused on helping teens gain critical thinking skills to deconstruct media messages. She displayed a variety of print advertisements and led a discussion about how these ads portray sexuality and body image.

Donna Rosser, School Health Educator with the Durham County Health Department, discussed changing tactics to adapt to current cultural and physical norms. Teens are reaching puberty earlier than in previous years, and they are delaying marriage and family much longer. These cultural and physical shifts create the need for increased teen awareness of their choices and consequences.

Monica Johnson, Health Educator with the STD prevention programs at the Durham County Health Department, described the recent School Wellness Week at a local high school. This week's activities were developed as a result of an outbreak of STDs at that school. With student involvement, they planned several activities to educate the students about STD transmission and prevention. It was a great success.

Ann Milligan-Barnes and Nikki McKnight, Neighborhood Nurses with the Durham County Health Department, created and presented a resource list of affordable reproductive health services in Durham County for men and women.

Ricardo Correa, Outreach Worker with the Local Access to Coordinated Healthcare (LATCH) program, discussed barriers to male usage of healthcare services. Since many of the barriers are financial, for example, men don't feel like they can take time off work for non-emergency healthcare. For those without health insurance, it can be very expensive for their budgets. But some of the barriers have more to do with the difficulty in engaging with healthcare providers - how hard it can be for men to figure out the healthcare and insurance systems, resisting the long and frequently uncomfortable routine questions that healthcare providers ask, and the quality of their experience in the healthcare setting.

Emily Adams, Vice president of Education and Organizational Development with Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina, presented DCAPP's advocacy agenda, which includes increased access to health care for youth and comprehensive sex education. On the federal level, $176 million is spent on abstinence education when research indicates that abstinence only and "Virginity" pledge programs are not effective.

Annette Carrington ended the panel with a discussion of the characteristics of effective curriculum based prevention programs, 2005 teen pregnancy rates / numbers for Durham and surrounding counties, and three fact sheets developed by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy: Teen Pregnancy Not Just Another Single Issue (11/2002), Teen Pregnancy Prevention: Dads make a difference (6/2004), and The Real Cost of Teen Pregnancy (9/2006).

The floor was then opened for questions and answers. Members of DCAPP responded to their area of expertise. One question lead to a lengthy discussion of Durham Public School's Policy 3020. Durham has policy that allows Comprehensive Sexuality Education however the Principal at each school may decide to teach only abstinence education and that is allowed, based upon policy and the law. Another question was related to qualifications of those teaching abstinence and/ or comprehensive sexuality education in the schools.

As a result of the Brunch, DCAPP is planning to develop partnerships and implement community based prevention programs with several of the community leaders and groups present.