Royal Oak High School (ROHS) will participate in the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy May 2, 2012. Its purpose is to focus the attention of teens on the importance of avoiding early pregnancy and parenthood.
To promote the National Day, Royal Oak High School will host a Youth Resource Fair May 2 to show what resources are available for students. Called “Stay Teen in Royal Oak”, the fair will feature raffles, gifts and live music.
Several Royal Oak organizations and businesses are helping promote this event including: Common Ground Sanctuary, Royal Oak Schools, HAVEN, ROHS PTSA, Royal Oak Youth Assistance, Royal Oak Middle School PTSA, Royal Oak Community Coalition, Total Soccer and Churchill Community Education Center.
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On this day and during May, which has been declared Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month, teens nationwide are asked to go to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy's new teen website www.stayteen.org and take a short, scenario-based "quiz" that asks young people what they would do in a number of sexual situations.
As always, parent involvement is encouraged. The web site www.stayteen.org will offer a parent discussion guide throughout the month of May that gives parents tools to discuss this important topic with their child.
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The latest news on the teen pregnancy front has been incredibly positive. The U.S. teen pregnancy rate has declined 42% from its peak in 1990 and is now at a nearly 40-year low, according to recent data from the Guttmacher Institute. These new data track teen pregnancy through 2008. In addition to the overall national declines, teen pregnancy has also decreased dramatically among all racial and ethnic groups.
Despite this progress, nearly 3 in 10 girls get pregnant by age 20. This suggests that we all need to continue helping teens postpone their families until they are older, through school, and in stable, committed relationships.
We hope that the National Day will help teens think carefully about sex, relationships, contraception, the possibility of pregnancy, and the lifelong challenges of being a parent.
National Day Quiz Findings: Last year over 650,000 individuals took the online National Day Quiz. Over 1,000 teens who took the Quiz took part in a post-quiz evaluation survey. Among the findings:
- 72% said the Quiz made them think about what they might do in such situations;
- 62% said some of the situations in the Quiz were things that they or their friends had faced;
- 61% said they’d talk to their friends about the situations described in the Quiz;
- 61% said the Quiz made the risks of sex and teen pregnancy seem more real to them;
- 52% said they’d encourage others to take the Quiz;
- 52% said the Quiz made them think about things they hadn’t thought about before;
- 46% said they’d learned something new from the Quiz about the consequences of sex; and
- 40% said they’d talk to their parents or other adults about the situations described in the Quiz.
The message of the National Day is straightforward: Sex has consequences. The online quiz (available in English and Spanish) delivers this message directly to teens and challenges them to think carefully about what they might do "in the moment."
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy is a nonprofit, nonpartisan initiative supported almost entirely by private donations. www.thenationalcampaign.org/national
For further information, contact:
Clemens Wittekind Health & Wellness Chair ROHS PTSA ClemensWittekind@gmail.com (877) 827-5269
Carrie Laurence, Counselor ROHS laurencec@royaloakschools.com (248) 435-8500, Ext. 1061.
