Statewide Chair
Mary
McLellan
Heritage Community Services
Regional
Chairs
Mariscia
Cooper
(Pee Dee)
Charlie Lybrand
(Lowcountry)
Lenna Neill
(Upstate)
Rev. Randy Riddle
(Grand Strand)
Dr. Roger Rollins
(CSRA)
Charlotte Valentine-Green
(Ace Basin)
Advisory Council
Eugene Bacote
Darlington School District
Dr. Vera Bailey
Hilton Head Preg. Care Center
Pamela Berry
Colleton Fire and Rescue
Dr. Vonda Calcutt
Lowcountry Ctr. Diabetes
Sen. Chip Campsen
Charleston/Berkeley
Rev. Chuck Coward
Charleston Outreach
Robin
Crosby
Colleton County
Ligure Ellington
Ret.Capt. Charleston City Police
Dr. Randy Goings
Chiropractic Physician
Faye Hill
Lowcountry Pregnancy Center & SC Association Pregnancy Care
Centers
WC Hoecke
Fatherhood Practioner
Leroy Lewis
Upward Bound at Cof C
Norman L. Moore, Jr.
Colonel, USAFR(Ret)
Cyndi Mosteller
Comm. for Higher Education
Alexia Newman
Carolina Pregnancy Center
Fred Payne
Marriage Savers of Upstate
Jerry & Barbara Seymour
R& R Marriage Min.
Ronald Shoupe
Colleton County
Dr. A. V. Strong
A Better Way, Inc. (Gang Out)
Dr. Robert Thomas
Pulmonary Medicine
Pastor Phil
Thrailkill
St. Luke UMC Hartsville
Kelly Walker
Upstate Fatherhood Coalition
May 6, 2010
SC Healthy Family Formation Coalition
E-News!
Teen Pregnancy Rates are
Downê
In
1995, Heritage Community Services began teaching
abstinence education in SC and according to SC-DHEC Biostatistics 2005,
from 1996 and 2005 the pregnancy rates for 15-17 year olds
dropped 35%!
By
2003,
Healthy People 2010
Goal
of 43 Teenage Pregnancies
per 1,000.
Without
question, abstinence education is a major factor in decreasing pregnancy
rates for middle and high school age youth. The recent uptick in national teen
pregnancy rates occurred in the 18-19 year olds; college aged girls,
not adolescents.
When
considering the high drop out rates due to teen pregnancy, delaying sexual
debut past high school is a tremendous success.
Heritage
Keepers® should be taught to every
middle
and high school student in SC!
Bristol Palin is sending a
strong and positive message to teen girls to commit to abstinence until
marriage regardless of prior sexual experience. For teens that are already
abstaining, sexually active, and unwed teen mothers, choosing to abstain
until marriage is a turning point in their lives.
Bristol Palin, Teen
Ambassador for The Candies Foundation, encourages
abstinence to prevent teen pregnancy among teenage girls. Last year, in Palin’s first
interview about her new position, she
said
“ I want to go out
there and promote abstinence
and just say this is
the safest choice,
this is the choice
that is going to prevent teen pregnancy
and that will
prevent a lot of heart ache.”
This year, Palin produced
a new video for
The Candies Foundation now airing across the
nation. Even though teen
birth rates are down, the
Just Say Yes Op
Ed
Dan
Bailey
Dan Bailey, Executive
Director of Just Say
Yes (Youth Equipped to Succeed) in
In the article, Bailey says “since the early 1990s, the number of teens who say they have not had sex has increased from 46 percent to 52 percent.”
“The problem is not in the
approach but in the public's perception of the approach.
Abstinence-centered education isn't focused on teaching 200 ways to say
"no." It's about helping youths develop the
life skills and abilities to successfully maneuver through a media-driven
culture that bombards teens with messages telling them that teen sexual
activity is fun, safe and expected. These positive risk-avoidance programs
also work to strengthen the relationship of parents and teens through
parent-education programs.
Abstinence education also
gives information about contraception when the schools request it, but it
does not demonstrate or promote contraception. The philosophy focuses on
prevention and risk avoidance, which is consistent with our message
to teens about drugs, alcohol and tobacco.”
2nd
Annual SC Hispanic Roundtable on
HIV/AIDS
On April 22, Heritage
Community Services joined 70 other participants from across the state to
address solutions to HIV/AIDS disparities within the Hispanic
Community.
Heritage
Community Services
(Heritage) along with Global Missions
International have been invited to work with Lowcountry AIDS Services and
their coalition of health, community and faith organizations around the
state to increase the number of HIV tests conducted and provide HIV/AIDS
prevention education.
Mary
McLellan presented promising results from the Heritage Keepers Abstinence
Education program and addressed issues and myths about abstinence
education. McLellan reported
that a year after the Heritage Keepers program, students initiated sex at
HALF the rate of comparison students. She emphasized that the closer a
person can get to one life long sexual partner the better the health
outcomes.
Heritage
and Global Missions International will provide expertise in
abstinence-centered education for the Hispanic faith community. Through teaching church leadership
and then parents/adults the benefits of abstinence until marriage and
fidelity within marriage, they anticipate impacting a generation of young
people that embrace Healthy Family Formation by delaying sexual activity
and reaching their full potential, without becoming single parents or
contracting STDs or HIV.
Learn
more about the Latinos in the Deep South Project of the Latino
Commission on AIDs…
Check
out the SCHFF E-News Archive!
Follow the SC-HFF Coalition on Twitter!
Join the Heritage Keepers® Facebook Cause
The South Carolina Healthy Family Formation Coalition (SC HFF Coalition) is organized and staffed by Heritage Community Services. The SC HFF Coalition promotes child and family well-being by providing opportunities for statewide communication about such issues as: adolescent pregnancy, unwed childbearing, fatherlessness, sexual exploitation of our youth, dating violence and domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, gang activity and youth violence.
Coalition members support healthy family formation initiatives that integrate character-based life skills, teen pregnancy prevention with an emphasis on abstinence-centered education, and the importance of fidelity-within-marriage.
Together
we can impact our culture so that forming healthy families becomes a norm,
rather than the exception, for
Please, forward this E-News to interested friends, family and colleagues and ask them to consider joining the Coalition.
PRIVACY POLICY: Information you share will never be sold, rented, or given to any third party.
Contact
Mary
McLellan
,
Statewide Chairman
(843)654-7740
ext.122
