The Abstinence Education E-Update is a free information service of the Division of Abstinence Education of the HHS/ACF Family and Youth Services Bureau, provided by the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth. Contact NCFY at (301) 608-8098 or ncfy@acf.hhs.gov. If you're having trouble viewing this e-mail, please click here to view a version of it on the Web.
November 2, 2009 For Adults Who Care About Young People
NCFY’s new pocket-sized booklet, “Positive Youth Development: An Introduction,” is perfect to hand out at trainings, workshops, staff meetings and parent gatherings. Readers will learn that through the support of caring adults, young people gain self confidence, trust and practical knowledge – qualities that will help them grow up happy, healthy and self sufficient. For staff or volunteers who want a more thorough introduction to PYD, NCFY also offers a free, self-paced, online learning course, “Introduction to Positive Youth Development.”
For Young People Learning to Be on Their Own “Keep in Touch” is a new audiovisual program that offers advice on staying connected and living independently. Aimed at young people who have recently left residential programs, the piece uses real-life examples of youth who made it on their own – with a little help from their friends. For information about a “Keep in Touch” icon you can put on your Web site, please e-mail ncfy@acf.hhs.gov. Also for young people, NCFY’s new “Speak Up” brochure. Youth will learn how to set goals, solve problems, settle disputes, keep track of appointments and get the services they need. Ten Tips to Keep Children Safe From Sexual Abuse Teen Pregnancy Rate Reversed Abstinence Group Honors Youth
Tough Times Mean Belt Tightening for Youth Programs This spring, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington, in Silver Spring, Md., was staring at a $7 million deficit, declining membership and outdated facilities. To stay afloat, the organization began the arduous task of making cuts to staff, programs and services. In the end, the group changed its business model so it could focus less on repairing roofs and more on serving young people. Clubs were closed, buildings sold and services moved into schools and recreation centers. The 100 programs the organization operated were trimmed to 25. In addition, senior staff took 10 percent pay cuts, some employees were laid off and other staff took furloughs. Like Washington’s Boys & Girls Clubs, many youth-serving agencies are facing thorny decisions about what to cut when ends don’t meet. “What worked for us is that we always stayed mission-focused,” says Leah Lamb, the clubs’ chief development officer. “We put together a restructure plan that focuses on freeing up resources to reach more youth in the future.” In addition, the organization used the following principles to guide the process: Involve everyone. “This was not a top-down process by any means,” Lamb says. Staff from all over the organization were kept informed and allowed input. Clearly, morale is an issue, so making decisions inclusively is instrumental, she says. Check the balance sheet. Financial statements not only help organizations decide which programs best fit their mission, they also serve as a crucial tool for communication with board members, staff and donors. Moreover, analyzing statements can give executives a clear sense of where costs are getting out of control and help organizations change their practices to meet emerging needs. Well-funded programs could be streamlined to make room for new programs. Or managers might determine the costs of running of a program are too great given its outcomes or the number of youth being served. Aim for measurable results. Lamb says every cut made had to be justified in terms of the net effects it would have on the organization’s mission and how many youth would be served. With the goal of striving for higher-quality programs, the groups’ leaders devised a number of measures each program would have to meet to be retained. Avoid knee-jerk decision making. Taking the long view helps leaders avoid succumbing to “the sky is falling” mentality and making cuts that will ultimately undermine the organization’s future. At the same time, don’t delay decisions. It’s easy to make the mistake of waiting for more information before making the difficult decision to slash a program. In a crisis, a group’s leaders ultimately have to pick the best moment to decide. Keep an eye on the future. A healthy nonprofit sets aside reserves, diversifies its funding sources and builds long-term relationships with community partners and donors. And from each crisis, it learns to operate more efficiently to be prepared for the next storm. For more information about fund raising, see NCFY’s Guide to Starting a Youth Program and Sustaining Your Youth Program: Weatherproofing Against Financial Storms. 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. Local Funding Partnerships 2009 Communities Putting Prevention to Work Home Depot Building Healthy Communities Grant Program See NCFY’s list of potential funding sources for abstinence education program for additional opportunities. While adolescent mothers often have higher levels of distress than their childless adolescent peers and adult mothers, adolescent childbearing does not appear to be the cause, according to the authors of “Investigating the Relationship Between Teenage Childbearing and Psychological Distress Using Longitudinal Evidence”[Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 50(3):310-326, September, 2009]. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study -- Birth Cohort, the authors found that adolescent mothers' distress levels were higher than those of their peers before the young mothers became pregnant. The levels remained higher after childbearing and into early and middle adulthood. In addition, the authors found that experiencing high levels of psychological distress and living below the federal poverty threshold markedly increased the probability of becoming an adolescent mother. Among adolescent girls with a household income greater than 400 percent of the poverty line, the link between distress and subsequent teenage childbearing was weak. Adolescents were more likely to delay sex after participating in a theory-driven, multi-component, curriculum-based intervention, according to the authors of “It’s Your Game: Keep It Real: Delaying Sexual Behavior with an Effective Middle School Program” [Journal of Adolescent Health, in press]. Participants in the study were English-speaking middle school students from a large, urban, predominantly African-American and Hispanic school district in Southeast Texas. Ten middle schools were randomly assigned either to participate in the It’s Your Game: Keep It Real program or not. The program combines group-based classroom activities with computer-based instruction and personal journaling. The authors followed students from grade seven through grade nine. The authors found that less than one quarter of the students who participated in the program initiated sex by ninth grade compared with almost one-third of the students in the comparison group. 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. 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 “I wish someone would have taken the time to sit down and explain, you have a high value, you are worth waiting for.” (Barbara Lawrence, director of the Pregnancy Care Center of Lawrence, in the Lawrence (KS) Journal-World, October 25, 2009) 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. |
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The Abstinence Education E-Update comprises links to Web sites with information on current events, research, funding opportunities, and other items related to abstinence-until-marriage education. Inclusion of this information does not imply endorsement by the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), or the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth (NCFY). Moreover, the points of view or opinions expressed on these Web sites do not necessarily represent the official position, policies, or views of FYSB, HHS, or NCFY.
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