Contact Name
Barbara Dietsch
562-985-9488

Contact Email
bdietsc@WestEd.org

Bronwyn Mayden, M.S.W.
Child Welfare League of America, Inc.

Research indicates that youths in out-of-home care (family foster care, group homes, and residential care) are at high risk of engaging in early unprotected sexual activity and experimenting with alcohol and other drugs, thereby increasing their risk for unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. These youths, however, often lack access to family planning services designed to give them the capacity to delay pregnancy.

The Child Welfare League of America's 1999 Stat Book, reports that at the end of 1996, the most recent year for which national data are available, 530,496 children and young people were in out-of-home care in the United States: 48.4% were African American, 35.3% Caucasian, 7.8% Latino, 2.5% Native American and Asian Pacific Islander, and 6.1% were members of other/unknown and biracial ethnic groups.

Studies of why children and youths enter out-of-home care document the troubled lives they have experienced-lives characterized by instability, abuse, neglect, and rejection. Many youths in out-of-home care face a multiplicity of problems at home including but not limited to: abuse and neglect, parental illness, death, handicap, and child's disabilities.

The few studies that exist on sexual activity rates for youths in out-of-home care place them at higher than average risk of engaging in premarital sexual activity or experiencing early unintended pregnancy or parenthood. Researchers report that youths in care were more likely than their peers not in care to have had sexual intercourse; were twice as likely to have been pregnant; were less likely to be informed about human sexuality and birth control; were less likely to have used contraceptives during their first intercourse or their most recent intercourse; and were less likely to have obtained contraceptives at a family planning clinic.

Additionally, many youths in out-of-home care have been sexually abused. Such abuse has been linked to overall sexual maladjustment and promiscuity and places these youths at higher risk than their peers in the general population of engaging in sexual activity or using alcohol or other drugs. These behaviors, in turn, multiply the danger of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, or becoming pregnant. Factors that influence inappropriate decision making regarding alcohol or other drug use and sexual behavior include abusive home situations, peer pressure, low self-esteem, and a perception of having limited options. The presence of these factors, combined with the effects of the normal developmental stages of adolescence (including the dynamics of an evolving sense of self, experimentation, risk taking, peer relationships, autonomy, and the establishment of a sexual identity and sexual relationships) underscore the need for specialized services including comprehensive sexuality education for youths in care.

Youths in the child welfare system, many of whom may have been in out-of-home care for several years and may experience multiple placements, may miss the opportunity to participate in school-based sexuality education classes and may not receive sexuality education while in the child welfare system. State administered child welfare agencies have been slow to develop policies, programs and practices to assist youths in out-of-home care delay pregnancy and parenthood. Adolescent pregnancy prevention administrators must reach out to child welfare agencies and assist them as they develop policies, programs and practices for youths in care.

Child welfare agencies can take steps to support abstinence education and promote asset building for youths in out-of-home care. When child welfare agencies assume the role of the parent, they must provide the programs, policies, and procedures that foster in adolescents a sense of competency, a sense of control over their lives, connectedness to others, and a sense of identity. Seven areas of services are needed:

Embrace total youth involvement. Services must be planned, delivered, and evaluated with the involvement of youths at all levels. Youths should be encouraged and taught to not only establish their own goals but to develop their service plans in partnership with their families and the child welfare staff. Through this process of total youth involvement, youth will feel respected.

Create a healthy and safe environment. This includes creating an environment that values individual differences and uniqueness. Also key to this element is the understanding that a healthy and safe environment is one that allows emotional and physical safety and security needs to be met.

Promote healthy relationships. This includes understanding emotions; practicing self-discipline; using such interpersonal skills as working with others, developing and sustaining friendships through cooperation, empathy, negotiation; and developing judgment skills and a coping system.

Learn by doing. Skills are best learned and incorporated by active practice and experience. Work ethics, values, and attitudes cannot be learned through classroom style teaching-they must be learned through active participation.

Create community partnerships. Programs do not have to provide every service; they function best when they are integrated into a system of linked services in the community. Youths should be involved in their community as volunteers to gain an understanding of their contributions to the betterment of society.

Independence takes time. The child welfare system expects that its youths will be independent by age 18 (or 21), something that we do not expect from our own children. We need to promote service longevity, to serve longer when needed. Programs serve youth better when they can provide meaningful aftercare and follow-up services.

Value individual strengths of the youth, their family, their culture, and their community. These strengths must not only be identified in service plans, but must be clearly evidenced in steps for achieving goals. All services should be individually and developmentally based, and youth must be reached in a way that matters to them.

Preventing teen pregnancy has no simple solution: it requires a sustained, coordinated commitment to a comprehensive, incremental long-term program in which abstinence-education is just one tool used. While some evidence suggests that abstinence education is developmentally appropriate for younger children and pre-teens, prior to their initiation of sexual intercourse, rigorous scientific evaluation remains necessary to determine how well abstinence education reaches those youth in the child welfare system, who are at high risk of premature sexual activity, teen pregnancy and STDs.