Students promote abstinence to community

Students in SCOM 470 will reach adolescents, parents, and the community as they work on a semester long media campaign to promote abstinence.

The class will utilize the media to help adolescents in the area make healthy choices and hopefully lower pregnancy rates.

"The [initiative] is trying to change social norms," said Jennifer Seaman data media coordinator at the Central Shenandoah Valley Office on Youth.

The students will work with the Shenandoah Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative sending out the message of abstinence to develop a campaign for the initiative.

"Most of the school systems in the area support abstinence teaching, which further promotes what [the initiative] is trying to do," said Kim Hartzler-Weakley, teen pregnancy prevention coordinator

The 18 students in the class were organized into groups of six, with each group targeting a different demographic. The class is currently brainstorming ideas for the campaign and learning about sexual activity statistics in the Central Shenandoah area.

"I am very impressed with the [SCOM 470] class," Hartzler-Weakley said. "I have high expectations."

One in five adolescents are becoming sexually active by age 15 in the Harrisonburg and Rockingham County area, according to a Youth Data Survey published by the Office on Children and Youth. Additionally, the teen pregnancy rate in Harrisonburg has been increasing for the last three years, Hartzler-Weakley said.

The Office on Children and Youth, a division of the Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services at JMU, received a grant for $1.3 million over five years from the Office on Adolescent Pregnancy Programs. The grant will be used for regional prevention and education along with the Central Shenandoah Valley Office on Youth in Waynesboro and Staunton.The grant is strictly abstinence-based, said Seaman.

. However, both the Central Shenandoah Valley Office and the Office on Children and Youth have other programs geared toward pregnancy prevention through other educational methods.

"It is very good experience for the health promotion side of communication studies," junior Ashleigh McDonald said.

"I support the program to a certain degree, but I feel like it would be a lot more effective if it wasn’t only abstinence," senior Mikhaila Riede said.