September 16, 2009

Media Stories

Lifetime Gives Birth to 'Pact'
Variety, September 7, 2009

Memphis Church Promotes Abstinence and Safe Sex Through Billboards
Associated Press, September 5, 2009

New Sex Education Law Implementation Underway
North Carolina Family Policy, September 3, 2009

Project WORTH Likely to Retain Funding
San Antonio Express News, September 3, 2009

U.N. Guide for Sex Education Generates Opposition
New York Times, September 2, 2009

Dallas Leads Nation in Repeat Adolescent Births, Study Finds
Dallas Morning News, September 1, 2009

Study: Houston Leads in Births Under Age 15
Houston Chronicle, September 1, 2009

Youth Spotlight Jenni Foley Originally I found out about Team Engage in high school because my mom worked for the organization. She told me about this program that hangs out with kids. I got involved because I liked the idea of being a voice to your peers. I was 15 or 16 at the time. And I got to go to different schools and talk to kids about the importance of abstinence. I think it’s a really good message that society and media have made us be really ignorant about. They tell you, ‘Of course teenagers are going to have sex.’ But the abstinence message, it’s about empowerment, saying you do have control over things the world says you don’t have control over. Lots of people think you have to be a nerd to be involved in stuff like this. I tell people about myself. I’m not a nerd. Honestly, I’ve made mistakes. But I have boundaries. I talk to the person I’m in a relationship with, and if they cross them, it’s over. When I go to schools, I try to form relationships with kids first, that’s the key. I talk to them about the pressures they’re facing. They ask me, “Are you really a virgin?” and I say, “Yeah, I am.” And then they start talking about their boyfriends and how they feel pressure to have sex. I say we all make mistakes because we’re human.  But by having boundaries, you don’t let yourself go past that line. I tell them it’s a gift to your future spouse. I’m  a psychology major. I love to counsel teenage girls. What they see on TV, that’s a fairy tale. We have this perception of Prince Charming. I say Prince Charming wouldn’t pressure you. He would wait. And I let them all know even if you haven’t been perfect, you can commit to abstinence again. The National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth is pleased to present a new series featuring youth champions of abstinence education. In the coming weeks, we'll offer profiles of young people who have not only made the decision to wait but have also been through and volunteered in abstinence education programs around the country— empowering other teens to make the same choice. If you have outstanding teens in your program, let us know about them. E-mail: ncfy@acf.hhs.gov.

Right on the Money

Diversify, Diversify, Diversify

When youth-serving organizations rely on just one source of funding, they can find themselves at risk during tough economic times. "An organization must diversify its funding streams in order to survive and thrive," says Ann McCaw, principal consultant at One Bright Bird Consulting, which advises nonprofit organizations on fundraising. "No donor will be around forever."

In addition, McCaw says, donors, whether foundation, government or individual, often put restrictions on how an organization spends its money.  "The more different kinds of donors you have, the more flexibility you have in how you spend those precious dollars," she says. "If one donor won't support advocacy or infrastructure, another kind of donor will."

Seeking multiple sources of funding is a long-term strategy—not a quick fix in a difficult economy. "Relationships take time to build and tremendous energy to sustain," McCaw says. "By carefully thinking through the most fruitful kinds of relationships for the organization as a whole, you will be growing the organization—maybe not in six months, but definitely over a year or two years or three."

To get our readers started on the road to diversification, NCFY has put together a few tips:

• Government funding is a start—not an end—to meeting your program's needs. Triangulate funding from federal, state and local sources to stave off the effects of budget cuts. Most state budgets set aside funding specifically for programs serving youth outside of school including mentoring programs and those for runaway and homeless youth. Numerous cities, towns and counties do the same.
• Private funding includes donations from individuals and grants from foundations and corporations. Building strong long-term relationships is key to raising money from private sources. In addition, when thinking of how donors can help you, don't think merely of their pocket books, McCaw says. Consider, as well, the ways they might help you build your programs and your fund-raising strategy. "If you're providing job training skills to at-risk youth, is there a kind of business where you would like to place them?" she says. "Then work with those businesses on building program and on fundraising activities." Some foundations offer technical assistance and training to their grantees; individual donors can be powerful spokespeople and volunteers for an organization.

What you can do:

• Determine your current funding mix from all sources.
• Consider the restrictions placed on each stream of funding.
• Consider how long each funding stream might last.
• Forecast where a gap might exist in the future.
• Create a strategic plan that joins your programmatic priorities and your fund-raising needs.

For more advice on raising money from diverse sources, see "Sustaining Your Youth Program," NCFY's guide to fundraising, with articles on foundation funding, events, in-kind donations, and the cultivation of private donors.

Right on the Money is a new NCFY column about how to keep the doors of nonprofit organizations open in good times and bad. If there's a topic you'd like us to address here, please e-mail us.

Recent Research

Trends in Adolescent Childbearing

The 2009 edition of Child Trends' annual “Facts at a Glance: A Fact Sheet Reporting National, State, and City Trends in Teen Childbearing” looks at adolescent birth data for 73 of the largest cities in the United States. The fact sheet reports the following:

• Detroit (20 percent), Cleveland (19 percent), and Jackson, Miss., and Memphis, Tenn. (18 percent), have the highest percentage of births to mothers under age 20. San Francisco (3 percent), Seattle (4 percent), and Honolulu (6 percent) have the lowest.
  
  
• Dallas (28 percent) has the highest percentage of repeat births to adolescent mothers (28 percent), followed by Jackson, Miss. (27 percent), and four cities at 26 percent (Providence, R.I., San Antonio, Cincinnati, and Oklahoma City). Boston has the lowest percentage (11 percent), followed by four cities at 14 percent (San Francisco, Honolulu, Virginia Beach, Va., and New York).

The data are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. The fact sheet also includes national and state-level trends in adolescent childbearing.

Evaluation of a Texas Sex Education Program

In “Effectiveness of a Sex Education Program to Delay Coital Debut Among Public School Adolescents” (PDF) [Adolescent & Family Health, 4(2):84-94], the author evaluated the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Sex Education Program, an abstinence-focused program that attempts to affect the knowledge, attitudes and behavioral intentions of more than one thousand predominantly Mexican-American middle school students. Students spent 10 weeks learning about the negative consequences of sex, methods of preventing sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy and communication skills in relationships. At the end of the program, two-thirds of students were committed to abstinence (compared to a little more than half before the program). More students believed that sex is not a safe activity for adolescents, that abstinence is the most effective means of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and that a person should practice abstinence until he or she is in a long-term relationship.

Go to the NCFY literature database for abstracts of these and other publications. Publications discussed here do not necessarily reflect the views of NCFY, the Family and Youth Services Bureau, or the Administration for Children and Families.

Know Your CBAE Contractors

Many of you have expressed confusion about the organizations that work with the Family and Youth Services Bureau to deliver CBAE training, technical assistance, and other resources. Over the past several weeks, we’ve used this space to present descriptive summaries of those organizations, how they serve grantees, and how to contact them. Here are the links to their descriptions in past issues in case you missed them.

Quote of the Day

“Teens should be informed about the enormous potential impact to their own lives and to the lives of the babies they bear when they decide to have sex.”

(Editorial, Corpus Christi Caller Times, September 8, 2009)

Address Change

Do you want us to send Abstinence Education E-Update to a new e-mail address? Have additional staff who should be getting this newsletter? Drop us a line at ncfy@acf.hhs.gov.