#Talking is Power

May is Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month and you’ll likely see an increase in national marketing and ad campaigns throughout the month on this very important topic.

Here in the Berkshires, we’re planning a large celebration and we hope you’ll join us! #Talking is Power is the theme of our celebration. A theme that epitomizes the approach taken by individuals and organizations who launched the Face the Facts: reduce teen pregnancy coalition in 2010.

Face the Facts was developed in response to the growing number and rate of teen births in the Berkshires. The initial goal of the coalition was to reduce the number of teen births in Berkshire County by 50% by the year 2020.

The coalition implemented several strategies to achieve this goal, all of which embrace the fact that #Talking is Power:

• They worked with local schools to ensure students in all 13 school districts received sexual health education.
• They increased access to reproductive health services for students in every Berkshire County high school as well as Berkshire Community College and MCLA.
• They held workshops to provide parents with tools and information that help them when talking about sexuality.
• They worked with local pediatricians to make sure sexual health was discussed during teens’ well visits.
• They launched a marketing campaign using billboards, posters, YouTube and Pandora to educate teens and their parents on common myths.

Taconic High School students, with Marcie Simonds, Allied Health teacher at Taconic, on the set of a Myth Busters video.  The Myth Busters video series were produced by the Berkshire United Way led Face the Facts: reduce teen pregnancy coalition as part of a social norms campaign aimed at Berkshire County teens.

Last spring, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health released the most recent data on teen births across the state. Berkshire County’s teen birth rate had decreased by 52%*, exceeding the coalition’s goal five years ahead of schedule.

That’s a result worth celebrating, and we intend to do just that as we recognize those throughout the community who are Driving Our Community Forward through the sometimes difficult, but always important work required to build a stronger community.

We hope to see you on Thursday, May 10^th from 5-7 p.m. at The Johnson Dealerships in Pittsfield, where we will keep the “talk” going.  You can register for this free event here.   I hope to see you there!

Kat Toomey, Coordinator of Positive Youth Development

* Between 2010 and 2015, the most recent year for which data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health is available.