Adolescent Sexual Responsibility Committee
Alignment Nashville’s Adolescent Sexual Responsibility (ASR) Committee made 2011 a year of new initiatives with its first community resource guide and first community conference.
Adolescent Healthy Futures is a multi-agency guide for connecting young people to reproductive health resources. In addition to a quick reference grid of resources, the guide is divided into specific sections:
- For youth-serving organizations and caring adults – where they can ask for an informational presentation or refer teens for assistance.
- For youth – where they can identify trained teens to help them or a friend deal with peer pressure, talk to their parents or get support to make healthy responsible choices.
- For parents – where they can find education resources including workshops, support groups and parent networks.
- For youth and caring adults – resources related to youth access to contraceptive services and sexual health services.
The ASR Committee also organized its first professional development conference entitled Putting It All Together: Connecting Community, Schools, and Resources – One Piece at a Time! The conference focused on building a framework for participants as they support young people’s development of healthy sexuality, as well as creating knowledge and comfort as they effectively use community resources. Participants included community members representing more than 30 organizations, including MNPS social workers, middle and high school health and wellness teachers, school nurses, health care providers, health educators and representatives from universities and faith-based and community-based organizations.
“It was amazing to see the hunger for information, resources and connections at the conference,” said D’Yuanna Allen, Chair of the ASR Committee. “This conference demonstrates the collective need for more training opportunities for professionals who work with youth and the collaborative power of Alignment Nashville to make such opportunities happen.” Participants agreed, with 100% ranking the conference helpful in “connecting available school and community reproductive health resources” and 97.2% agreeing that they feel more comfortable linking the young people they serve to reproductive health resources they need.
A decade ago, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a national call to action for promoting sexual health and responsible sexual behavior while addressing the significant public health challenges regarding the population’s sexual health. Clearly, Alignment’s ASR Committee is proactively tackling the issues related to adolescents.
Next
In January 2012, the ASR Committee will actively distribute the Adolescent Healthy Futures Resource Guide to youth-serving organizations and providers in conjunction with the Nashville Public Television (NPT) premier of a documentary exploring the role of sexuality and sexual responsibility in the health of Tennessee’s children. The documentary is part of NPT Reports: Children’s Health Crisis project, a three-year initiative developed around the AN Children’s Health Executive Oversight Committee’s “Five Goals for Children’s Health in Nashville.”
The ASR Committee will also begin a strategic re-framing process to expand its organizational partnerships for greater impact in the community.
Results
1. Early this year, the ASR Committee was nationally recognized in a feature article about adolescent sexual responsibility and collaborative opportunities with public schools in the NACCHO Exchange, the quarterly journal publication of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. The publication is received by every local health department in the nation.
2. More than 97% of organizational participants felt more comfortable linking young people to needed reproductive health resources after attending Nashville’s first professional development conference on health sexuality organized by the ASR Committee.
For more information, contact: Anthony Johnson, America’s Promise Collaborative Coordinator.
