Nationwide Efforts to End Adolescent Pregnancy

Nationwide Efforts to End Adolescent Pregnancy

Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program Fact Sheet

FACT SHEET

FYSB Mission

To support the organizations and communities that work every day to reduce the risk of youth homelessness, adolescent pregnancy and domestic violence.

FYSB Vision

A future in which all our nation’s youth, individuals and families—no matter what challenges they may face—can live healthy, productive, violence-free lives.

Although teen birth rates have been falling for the last two decades, 229,888 babies were born to women aged 15—19 years in 2015. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ,the U.S. has the highest rate among western industrialized nations. Teen pregnancy and childbearing can carry high health, emotional, social and financial costs for both teen parents and their children, thus the need for efforts to end adolescent pregnancy is as great as ever.

FYSB supports state, Tribal, and community efforts to promote medically accurate, age appropriate education to prevent teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted infections. Through a holistic approach to programming, youth participants are learning skills to make healthy decisions and to prepare them for successful transition to adulthood. FYSB’s Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (APP) Program administers 131 grants throughout the nation and several U.S. territories. The APP funded programs are:

  • The State and Competitive Personal Responsibility Education Programs promote proven methods for reducing adolescent pregnancy, delaying sex among young people, and increasing the use of condoms and other contraceptives among sexually active youth.
  • The Tribal Personal Responsibility Education Program helps Tribes combat the disproportionately high rates of teen pregnancy among American Indian and Alaska Native youth.
  • The Personal Responsibility Education Innovative Strategies Program supports organizations that are using innovative strategies to prevent pregnancy among youth ages 10—19 who are homeless, in or “aging out” of foster care, live in rural areas or in geographic areas with high teen birth rates, or come from racial or ethnic minority groups, as well as pregnant youth and mothers under the age of 21.
  • The Sexual Risk Avoidance Education Program supports organizations implementing sexual risk avoidance education that teach youth how to voluntarily refrain from non-marital sexual activity, empower youth to make healthy decisions and provide tools and resources to prevent pregnancy, STI, and youth engagement in other risky behaviors.

Holistic Approach to Preventing Teen Pregnancy Among Vulnerable Youth Populations
Adolescent development extends beyond the physiological changes that occur in adolescence to also encompass cognitive, emotional, social, sexual, identity formation, and spiritual change and growth. Adolescent development, the transition to adulthood, can occur between ages 8 and 24. By helping manage changes that are occurring, adolescents are allowed to develop core assets through experience, learning, and practice of skills that will lead to healthy adolescent development and delay pregnancy.

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