Involving the Faith Community in Teen Pregnancy Prevention

INVOLVING THE KEY PLAYERS38REMEMBER...At any initial meetings, staffshould be prepared to cover thisground. Without a commonunderstanding of the problem, littleenergy for a real partnershipwill develop.To help reduce teen pregnancy,faith communities do not have toimplement sexuality educationprograms or become familyplanning clinics. In particular,they do not have to change theirposition on the value of delayingsex until marriage. This may bethe most important idea of all.Much of what faith communitiesalready do is helping to reduceteen pregnancy, and at no pointshould it be suggested thatunless they begin providing sexeducation or related services,they are not helping to solve theproblem. It may be that a particularfaith community will wantto support contraceptive clinicsor sexuality education, but manywill not, and it is vitally importantthat whatever their takeon sex education, they stillbe among a program’s friendsand colleagues.Research increasingly suggeststhat broad youth developmentprograms—some of the best ofwhich are offered through faithcommunities—can make signiicantdents in teen pregnancy.Faith communities are alreadymaking an enormous contributionthrough their work withyouth generally, their supportof families and marriage, theirefforts to improve parent-childcommunication, their childcare services and after-schoolprograms, their sport and recreationalactivities, and theirdirect engagement with valuesand moral choices. Make itclear that regardless of whatspecific activities are undertaken,programs and faith communitiescan support each other aseach tries to reach the youngpeople within their particularsphere of influence. The mainmessage to faith groups is oneof support and respect.At some point, a program maywant to ask a community to dosomething more explicitly aimedat preventing teen pregnancy,but in making such a pitch, it isessential for programs to honorwhat faith communities arealready doing.One model for faith-based youthdevelopment is UnitingCongregations for YouthDevelopment. This is a multiyearproject designed to equipfaith communities to strengthenthe developmental foundationthat all children and youth needto grow up healthy. The projectoffers the opportunity for youthworkers to participate in interfaithnetworks. They receive