G-CAPP Policy and Advocacy News

Celebrate Let's Talk Month
October is Let’s Talk Month, a national campaign emphasizing the importance of conversations between young people and the adults they trust about sex and relationships.

Such discussions can help young people delay sexual activity and avoid unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Research shows that the number one factor in healthy adolescent sexual decision-making is good communication and close relationships with a child’s parents or adult guardian.

The G-CAPP website provides strategies for parents to start a conversation with their children, ideas for promoting Let’s Talk Month in your community, links to other resources, and statistics on teen pregnancy. Working together, parents and their communities can provide the information and skills necessary to prepare young people to become healthy adults.

PeachCare Update
President Bush has vetoed a bi-partisan bill that would have reauthorized and expanded the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), which provides federal funding for the PeachCare for Kids program in Georgia. The initial S-CHIP legislation only authorized the program for a 10 year period, which ended on September 30, 2007.

In August, the Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health delivered a letter of support for PeachCare for Kids and S-CHIP to President Bush and members of Congressional Leadership with the signatures of over 100 organizations, including G-CAPP. The letter asked that S-CHIP be reauthorized and that adequate funding be provided to cover eligible children in Georgia.

Continue to contact Georgia’s US Senators and your Representative to ask them to reauthorize S-CHIP, in order to avoid further disruptions to the highly successful and effective PeachCare program. Public and private insurance coverage and services should be accessible, available and affordable in order to ensure that vulnerable youth do not go without health care in Georgia.

G-CAPP Announces Georgia’s 11th Second Chance Home
G-CAPP announces the grand opening of the state’s 11th Second Chance Home, Pearls for Girls, which serves parenting teens in the Ellenwood community and surrounding areas in DeKalb County.

The state of Georgia has a particularly high rate of repeat teen pregnancies, with nearly 30% of all pregnancies among teens ages 15 to 19 occurring to girls who have already been pregnant at least once before.

G-CAPP's Second Chance Homes program, which has become a model for other states, is an effective strategy for helping teen mothers prevent a second pregnancy until they are self-sufficient adults, while providing them with a safe living environment, parenting education and support for long-term economic independence. For more information, see this recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution article.

G-CAPP Fast Fact
The great majority (87%) of teens say it would be easier for them to postpone sexual activity and avoid teen pregnancy if they were able to have more open, honest conversations with their parents.

Source: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.