Teenage Pregnancy Prevention
Teen Educators Provide High Comfort Level in Collaborative Program
  elping young people make responsible choices about sex is challenging—especially when the very nature of
adolescence predisposes many teens to rebel against adults.
  The Stuart M. Ketchum Downtown YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) in Los Angeles is working to prevent teen pregnancy by recruiting and training teens, ages 15 to 18, to promote reproductive health among youth in their own neighborhoods as peer educators.
TCWF provided a two-year, $100,000 grant to support the YMCA’s teenage pregnancy prevention peer education project.
“The teen pregnancy rates are very high in our service area,” said Tina LaRoche, associate executive director of community development for the YMCA.
UC Berkeley’s California Potential Project Areas for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Programs reports that the Pico-Union, Westlake and parts of South Los Angeles communities included in the YMCA’s service area are among the highest in the state, not only for pregnancy rates among teens ages 15 to 19, but also among teens ages 14 and younger.
 "We saw the need to include pregnancy prevention in our program and we thought a collaborative approach would work best,” LaRoche said.
The YMCA is joined by CityLife, Los Angeles Team Mentoring, Inc. (TeamWorks) and Valley Community Clinic (VCC). VCC trains program youth, ages 15 to 18, from the YMCA, CityLife and TeamWorks in VCC’s highly successful peer education program. Program graduates over the age of 15 move on to be paid teen pregnancy prevention peer education interns for the YMCA, CityLife and
TeamWorks.
“I think that it is easier for youth to learn and gain knowledge from other
youth,” said 15-year-old Bryan Forrest, peer educator intern. “I know this
because I feel more comfortable when I share or talk to someone who knows what I
am going through.”
The first group of 11 interns completed their weeklong peer education
training in July. The youth are now peer educators and provide reproductive
health education to youth in their neighborhoods through agreements with local
community service centers, churches and schools. The collaborative will provide
over 1,000 youth with peer education on healthy adolescent sexuality over the
two-year grant period.
“Youth listen to youth and they like talking about sex – this we know,” said Project Director Jacki Breger of CityLife. “We try to build on that and ensure that the information that the kids are getting is accurate.”
The YMCA collaborative recognizes the need for a realistic approach to teen
pregnancy prevention and provides referrals and instructive information on
contraception for teens who are sexually active within the context of an
abstinence-based message.
“I appreciate that the YMCA has taken lessons learned from a successful peer
education model and applied it to their own work in a way that is organic to the
organization,” said Mercy Siordia, TCWF program director.
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