Teen Wellness Initiative (Pregnancy Prevention)

The Cuyahoga County Board of Health has been the administering agency of the Teen Wellness Initiative since 1997. In partnership with target school districts and community-based agencies, the initiative focuses on providing comprehensive, evidence-based sexual education to youth throughout Cuyahoga County.

The primary objectives of the Teen Wellness Initiative are:

• Provide youth with the necessary information, motivation, and behavioral skills to make informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health.
• Provide parents/guardians with a variety of tools that promote increased communication with their teens.
• Increase access to adolescent health services.
• Develop policies that incorporate and support public health principles.

During the 2010-2011 program year, the Teen Wellness Initiative will be focusing programmatic efforts on the following two components:

School-Based Component

Schools are an important setting in which to contribute to the development of healthy sexuality and to reduce risk-taking behavior. Comprehensive sexuality education provides young people with information and skills which will enable them to make sound decisions now and in the future. With the ultimate goal of reducing one or more sexual behaviors that lead to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, the Teen Wellness Initiative at CCBH has been providing evidence-based human sexuality programming in a classroom setting throughout the county for over ten years.

In the 2010-2011 program year, the Teen Wellness Initiative will coordinate programming in seven target school districts throughout the county. Using five approved evidence based comprehensive sexual health curricula, programming will be delivered to 5th - 8th grade students in the following school districts:

Cleveland Heights/University Heights; East Cleveland; Euclid; Richmond Heights; South Euclid/Lyndhurst; Warrensville Heights and to 9th and 10th grade students in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District as a part of their comprehensive K-12 Responsible Sexual Behavior (RSB) Program.

  2009-2010 Cleveland Metropolitan School District's K-12 RSB Program Evaluation

  2009-2010 RSB Evaluation Briefs

  2010-2011 Comprehensive Sex Education Evaluation Report

Community-Based Component

Concern for America's at-risk, sexually active youth prompted the Annie E. Casey Foundation to develop the PlainTalk Initiative. PlainTalk (PT) is a nationally recognized initiative that takes a unique approach to the prevention of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. This is a community-based initiative that helps adults develop skills to communicate effectively with teens about reducing sexual risk-taking. The program accomplishes this task by increasing adult-teen communication about responsible sexual behaviors, and increasing teens' access to reproductive health services.

During the 2010-2011 program year, the Teen Wellness Initiative will fund two PlainTalk community sites within the city of Cleveland.

• The first site is in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Cleveland and is funded through the Mt. Pleasant Community Zone.
• The second site is in the Cudell neighborhood of Cleveland and is funded through the Nueva Luz Urban Resource Center.

For more information on the PlainTalk Initiative please visit: www.plaintalk.org .

The Cuyahoga County Board of Health's Teen Wellness Initiative is made possible through grant funding provided by the Family and Children First Council and the Cuyahoga County Office of Health and Human Services.

Contact 

Sandi Hoch, R.N., B.S.N.
Program Supervisor
shoch@ccbh.net 
(216) 201-2001 ×1341

Kate Burnett
Grant Coordinator
kburnett@ccbh.net
(216) 201-2001 ×1502