In December Congress passed legislation which included funding for a new and significant investment in efforts to prevent teen pregnancy. Since then, we have been preparing for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to release the funding announcement, which will include the detailed criteria for programs that will be eligible to apply for grants. Through a competitive award process, this new teen pregnancy prevention initiative will provide $75 million for replicating programs with strong evidence of success and another $25 million for research and demonstration grants to develop, test, and refine promising programs and innovative strategies to reduce teen pregnancy. The recently-established U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Adolescent Health will administer this new program.

The National Campaign has been busy publicizing and promoting this initiative broadly and a big part of our outreach has been to Latino-serving organizations. So far we have launched a new web portal with key information about the federal funding, launched a series of conference calls and webinars to further discuss it, and published our updated What Works 2010: Curriculum-Based Programs That Help Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

As we noted here earlier in the month, February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month. For anyone who's interested in this topic (and anyone who's interested in teen and unplanned pregnancy prevention probably should be), I wanted to draw your attention to some content on the subject on our sister sites, stayteen.org and sexreally.com.

StayTeen's dating violence section has facts about dating violence, a quiz, and tips for what to do if you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship. Additionally, Youth Leadership Team member Maritza has a new post in StayTeen's Stay Out Loud section called "No Excuse For Abuse," in which she discusses the high profile case of dating violence perpetrated by pop singer Chris Brown against fellow singer and then girlfriend Rihanna and how it relates to young people who aren't famous but who may be dealing with similar issues.

Bristol Palin, "arguably the most famous teen mother in America" (according to ABC), will make her acting debut on ABC Family's Secret Life of the American Teenager next season. She'll be playing herself - a teen mom - who meets the show's lead character, Amy Juergens, at a music program for teen moms. (Amy got pregnant during a one night encounter at band camp two summers ago). There is going to be a lot of snark about this - a) because the show is made for young teens (not snarky grownups) and can be a bit over the top when it comes to sex talk, b) because Bristol and her family have asked for privacy and being on TV isn't very private, and c) because Bristol is now an advocate for abstinence. In fact, the mean grrls at Jezebel are already on the case. As a mean girl (and Jez fan) myself, I expected nothing less.

But instead of being mean about it I'd like to applaud ABC Family for putting this show on the air in the first place, sticking with this storyline beyond Amy's first-season pregnancy, showing a glimpse of what teen parenthood might be like for an upper middle class girl in the leafy green suburbs of TV land, exploring in its own Secret-Life way how a single teen pregnancy affects not just the girl (and guy), but also their families, their friends, their worldviews and their futures, and for incorporating stories about sex that include gossip, regret, condoms, masturbation, waiting, and even helpful parental advice. The viewers love it.

This just in...

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced today that the teen birth rate in the great state of California has declined to a record low. Since 1990, the teen birth rate in the Golden State has plummeted--wait for it--a whopping 39%. 

What gives? CDPH notes that they administer a number of teen pregnancy prevention programs, including the Community Challenge Grant Program, the Information and Education Program, and the Family PACT (Planning, Access, Care, and Treatment) Program; the California Department of Social Services supports the Cal-Learn Program; and the California Department of Education funds the California School Age Families Education (CalSAFE) Program.

In short, the kitchen sink approach seems to work. Through multiple Governors (both Ds and Rs), the state has remained committed to preventing teen and unplanned pregnancy. Through lean budget times and salad days, the state has recognized the importance of a strategy that welcomes multiple strategies and interventions--clinic access and services, media, support for community programs...the list is long.

Bravo, California. Keep up the good work.

***This post was modified by the author on March 1, 2010.

With Tiger Woods' recent mea culpa, it's easy to feel rather cynical and pessimistic about this institution we call marriage. Results in the just-released State of Our Unions report also give us reason to wonder whether marriage is on its way out, with the percentage of kids born outside of marriage rising from 18% to 40% just since 1980 and the number of kids whose parents are "just living together" rising from just under half a million to over 2.5 million during that same period. But this report also tells us not to count marriage out just yet--not only because marriage is still the most beneficial environment for families (that's old news), but because the upcoming generation is counting on it. For high school seniors, 71% of boys and 82% of girls said "having a good marriage and family life is extremely important" to them.

In data collected by The National Campaign, 47% of 18 to 24 year olds say they expect to marry and have a baby with their current partner. Here's the problem. They don't know how to get there. While most high school seniors are telling us how important a good marriage is to them, over half also said "Having a child without being married is experimenting with a worthwhile lifestyle or not affecting anyone else." (What?) And, of those 18 to 24 year olds who expect to walk down the aisle and then have a baby, we know a lot of them will have the baby first, and then never walk down the aisle. This doesn't mean we should give up on marriage. Quite the opposite--it means we need to talk to teens and young adults in a way that says--yeah, we get that you want love, and marriage, and the baby carriage...someday--let's talk about how (and when) to get there.