Today I was interviewed by Emily Harris of OPB’s Think Out Loud. It was a great experience and I hope that people listen and take out of it the following:

Teens are having sex. Not all, not even the majority. But, many are sexually active.

Family and community support is important; when you have it. Some of our teens are homeless, living in horrible living conditions, do not speak English well enough to navigate our health system, etc.

Abstinence-Only programs are ineffective. They have been proven ineffective over and over again. They work for intent, but do not lead to behavior change.

Abstinent -Based programs are effective and promote abstinence, but include contraception lessons. They have lead to behavior change and abstinence for a longer period of time.

Sexuality Education should be skills-based, not just basic biology where students learn information and are tested out of a textbook.

In Oregon, we need teachers to be supported through professional development opportunities by the Oregon Department of Education (ODE). Currently there is no health education specialist on staff and we’ve recently lost our school health team lead. We need to advocate to ODE to support school health programs. Because healthy kids learn better…

To listen to the show, go to http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/listen/

UPDATE: You can listen to or download the show as an MP3 by clicking here. (24MB)