Teen Pregnancy/Sexual Education and the Advocate's Role
Kimberley Thornton-Candley
BSHS/442
May 23. 2010
Latera Davis

Teen Pregnancy/Sexual Education and the Advocate's Role Advocacy is a big part of the human services field, people need someone who will assist with services many need. A human services worker can speak on behalf of the client and carry out different things the client has to do. One of the groups in need of advocates is youth/teens. Many areas that are targeted for youth but teen pregnancy and sexual education are the most important. Teen pregnancy and sexual education has had its surges and declines over the past 10 years. But, it has been shown that sexual education can help to assist in the decline to teen pregnancy. It has been shown by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that in 2006, there were 435,436 births to mothers aged 15–19 years in the United States, a birth rate of 41.9 per 1,000 women in this age group (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.). This shows that this is a problem that continues to affect our communities all over the USA. This is not directed at one race of people but each race are looking at the high rate of pregnancy. “After declining steadily from 1991–2005, birth rates for 15- to19-year-olds increased significantly between 2005 and 2006 in 26 states from all regions of the country. This increase was not seen among younger teens: birth rates for 10- to14-year-olds declined from 0.7 to 0.6 per 1,000 girls. In addition, the number of births for 15- to19-year-olds rose 3% to 435,436 in 2006, compared to 414,593 in 2005—the largest increase in a single year since 1989–1990. Causes for this increase are not yet known, but bear concern due to the potential increase in the socioeconomic burden of teen pregnancy and childbearing” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.).