No, I don't mean the recent good news for D.C. sports teams. One of the reasons I was drawn to work on teen pregnancy was the powerful book written by Leon Dash in 1989 called When Children Want Children, which chronicled the complicated lives and motivations of teen girls who became parents in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Washington D.C. Since moving to D.C. in 1989, I have seen both progress and setbacks on issues affecting children and youth. One of the long-term positive trends in D.C. has been the dramatic decline in the teen pregnancy and birth rates. Consider this: Since the early 1990s, around the time Mr. Dash wrote his groundbreaking book, the teen birth rate in D.C. has fallen almost 60%! Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that D.C.'s teen birth rate is now lower than that of five states (AR, MS, NM, OK, and TX).

This progress is more than positive trends on a chart: it translates into profound improvements in the lives of children, families, and communities. This point was driven home dramatically by two announcements last week. On April 24, I read a story in The Washington Post about the declining caseloads in the D.C. Child Welfare system. It may be a sign I've been doing what I do for too long, but my first thought was: Hmm, I wonder if the progress in reducing teen pregnancy has contributed in some way? After all, research is clear that children born to teen mothers are at increased risk of entering foster care and teens in foster care are at increased risk of having children, who may in turn enter the system. And, according to the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 76% of children placed in foster care in D.C. were born to teen parents or parents who began having children in their teens.

The next day, April 25, brought more good news: The infant mortality rate in D.C., which has been tragically high for many years, has dropped significantly in recent years and is now at a historic low level. This time, I didn't have to just speculate about the connection with teen pregnancy. D.C. officials credit fewer teenagers getting pregnant as one of the key factors behind the drop in infant mortality. Obviously one infant death is too many, but this is still progress worth celebrating. It is also a vivid reminder of why preventing teen pregnancy deserves our ongoing commitment and investment--in D.C., by federal officials, and around the country. If we can continue making progress in helping children wait to have children, we will see fewer children in foster care and less infant mortality, not to mention more young people finishing school and less poverty. Kudos to the many public and private sector leaders in D.C. who have worked so hard to make progress on all these very tough, and interrelated, issues. Keep up the great work!

I think there are many misconceptions out there about lobbyists. We're all having steak at The Palm, right? We push and cajole and buy our way to a vote we want. We're straight out of casting for the movie Thank You For Smoking, a comedy I highly recommend by the way, despite not being anything like the so-called M. O.D. (Merchants of Death) lobbyists portrayed in the film.

Last week, with the help of many colleagues, I trained 15 teenagers from all across the country on how to be lobbyists--specifically how to advocate for evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs--then sent them off to Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress and their staff and, well, lobby. As members of The National Campaign's Youth Leadership Team (YLT), I expected this group of youth leaders to be impressive, but I was blown away. These are some of the most thoughtful, smart, eloquent, and--yes--fun, kids I've ever met. So what could I possibly teach them? Well, I told them what to expect, such as hallway meetings and remembering to turn off your cell phone ringer, and to remember to make "the ask" (in this case, to protect funding for evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs). I reminded them that every lobbyist has tough meetings and not to be discouraged. But most importantly I told them to share their stories. Why does this issue matter to them? Why is this so important for all American teenagers?

And now I get to the "wow" factor. These teens blew me away with how they told some of the most heart-wrenching stories and deftly wove those into a narrative about the need to prevent teen pregnancy--and to do so using programs that are proven to work. Here were a group of young adults who spoke of being the child, sibling, or friend of a teen parent. Here were teens who had seen up close what happens when one of their peers gets pregnant. This is what we call grassroots lobbying at its best. Members of Congress need to hear these stories, happening in their own states and districts, and they need to hear it from those impacted right now.

As one Hill staffer wrote to me immediately after a meeting with a YLT member, "impressive constituent." All I would add is to make that plural. Impressive indeed.

There are times when you want words and phrases like "plunge"  and "steep drop" and "historic lows" associated with the things you wake up caring about every day. This would be one of those times.

Seems the U.S. teen birth rate is now at a historic low level, this according to the good public servants at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The truth is we knew that already--what we didn't know was that rates for all racial/ethnic groups are also at historic lows. What we also didn't know is that the absolute number of teen births--not the rate, friends, but the actual number--is the lowest it has been since the Truman Administration. How is that even possible?

The report from NCHS also contains new data on state teen birth rates. In particular, it is more than passing interesting to note that 16 states had declines in teen births of 20% or better between 2007 and 2010. The list of states defies regional categorization (states range from Washington to Florida), size categorization (states range from California to Delaware), population demographic categorization (states include North Carolina and Wyoming), poverty categorization (states range from Mississippi with high poverty levels to Massachusetts with one of the 10 lowest poverty levels).

Interesting right?

Read the report or some of the media coverage and let us know what you think.

I've been fortunate enough to spend some time recently with federal grantees and other leaders working to address teen pregnancy all over the country. Even though my colleagues and I are often invited to national meetings and gatherings to provide information and advice to these state and local experts, I always walk away feeling like I have gained more wisdom from them than I could possibly teach in our short time together.

Last week's workshops focused on communication--specifically, how we can talk about what we do in a way that resonates with the communities we're trying to reach and, well...doesn't tick anybody off. After hours of training and exercises and simulating interviews and chart paper, a really smart colleague raised this point:

The language we have at our disposal stinks.

It's true. We work in a field where we say stuff like:

• Evidence-based teenage pregnancy prevention programs (I fell asleep typing that)
• Adolescent sexual and reproductive health services (umm...what?) sometimes shortened to the hip and cool 'ASRH'
• Opportunity costs/deficits/insert noun that implies a connection to financial ledgers here

And the list goes on.

Nothing is wrong with using these phrases. In fact, if you work in this field, using this jargon is second nature. Not to mention, really smart people researched for years to develop the important concepts behind these terms. The problem is that they don't do a good enough job of capturing our values--put another way, you can't tell why we do what we do if you listen to the way we speak.

Let's pick on the Campaign for a moment and our decision to frame much of what we advocate for as "pregnancy prevention." Sounds kind of medical, kind of blah. Some would even argue that it implies an inappropriate singular focus on a particular reproductive health outcome (add the phrase "reproductive health outcome" to the list above) rather than giving weight to the full range of issues and circumstances that youth are facing when they make decisions about sex, relationships, and contraception.

But here's what we believe:

• Addressing high rates of teen pregnancy is an important issue to work on, including in communities where stark disparities exist for racial/ethnic groups, and even considering that in some situations the issue is complicated by poverty, a lack opportunity and resources for young people, and spotty access to information and services.
• We approach our work in communities with great consideration of these circumstances (also known as social determinants of health...LIST ALERT), and do our best to address all barriers that inhibit progress on this health issue and others.
• Our messages and actions about prevention should never, EVER alienate or stigmatize teen parents. They also must acknowledge that every single teen who becomes pregnant ALWAYS has a right to choose to parent, and that in a small number of cases, teens become pregnant intentionally.

We act on these values by supporting community-based organizations that provide services and programs to youth while addressing barriers to access within those communities, constantly asking teens what they want for themselves and how we can best support them, and by exploring data and important research questions about the circumstances in which teen and unplanned pregnancy occur, which provides important context about young people's lives for the work we do. But saying all of that takes too long. The language we have is imperfect, but it's what we have.

Here is what I propose. If we can acknowledge that our terminology leaves something to be desired, then you can assume when we say we work on "teen pregnancy prevention" that it entails much more than just going into communities and blindly telling teens not to get pregnant.

Language matters, but not as much as our values do.

In American politics there are many guiding principles that, while you won't find them taught in school, are true nonetheless. These include truisms like you can't be against Ethanol and win in Iowa, or, the only thing that can sink a really successful campaign is for the politician to be found in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. (Ugh, right? Credit for that has been attributed to many different politicians over the years, but a Google search reveals many seem to think it originated with former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards.)

Then again, there are some things that are just common sense. When there is overwhelming support for something, being against that something, whatever it is, is not good for your political health. So, I feel somewhat bad for politicians of late who have come out against the contraceptive coverage provision requiring employers to provide coverage of contraception in their insurance plans without co-pays or deductibles. To be clear, churches and houses of worship are exempt from this requirement, and for religiously-affiliated institutions, the insurance company would be required to offer that coverage directly to the woman.

The media has characterized polling on this issue as mixed, but as a recent blog post by Margie Omero shows, the opinions haven't been mixed so much as the wording of the questions has been. As Omero illustrates, support for contraceptive coverage is extremely high. This is not a shocker to anyone who knows that 99 percent of American women who have ever had sex have used contraception. Americans, it turns out, possess common sense. We understand that contraception is something we all use or benefit from (for example in the case of "penis-ed Americans," as Jon Stewart characterized them the other night). We get that if contraception is accessible and affordable, more people will be able to use it, we will have fewer unplanned pregnancies, and fewer abortions will result from those unplanned pregnancies.

So, back to why I feel pity for many politicians who have opposed contraceptive coverage in recent weeks? Well, while this might help them appeal to a select group of voters in the short term, it is not where the nation is. Perhaps in this election we'll learn a new principle to add to those above--being against contraception is a losing position.