Recently, the whole staff took 3 days and went to Dewees Island, just outside of Charleston. We spent the time together sharing stories, talking about why we love our work, and what we can to become better coworkers and teammates. It was a very special experience, and one that I felt honored to be a part of.

In the midst of playing board games, racing golf carts around dirt roads, and learning about the natural habitat of the island, I was reminded of how much each of the people in our small group meant to me, and what they each add to my life. The group is made up of new friends and old, but for those three days, we came together like brothers and sisters, eager to learn from each other and strengthen our bonds.

I treasure each of these relationships, and couldn’t be more thankful for the loving people I have the priveledge to call my friends and teammates. I know that over the next year we will accomplish great things, and I am thankful to have them in my corner.

From the Tell Them family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

“Babies are great… when you’re ready for them. We think in the meantime women should have the right to a healthy, happy sex life without having to worry about unplanned pregnancy. For that to happen, women need to take an active role in their own reproductive health. We want to help with that.”

I love many things about this website, but my favorite feature is the birth control caparison tool. It lists contraception methods available to women (including abstinence and natural family planning) and in simple, reasonable, matter-of-fact terms, lists the features (both positive and negative) about each option. The graphics are fun, clean, and easy to follow, and the information provided is factual and easy to understand.

About a year ago, when Bedsider.org was in beta testing, I started using the daily text message feature. Every night, I receive a text message that reminds me to take my pill- and Bedsider makes sure that each message is cute, quirky, and fun. For example, on Friday’s message read “Ariel, from The Little Mermaid, is the only Disney Princess to have a baby (in the sequal). Not ready to be a mermaid or a Mom just yet? Then take your pill.” The time and frequency of these messages are customizable. You can visit Bedsider.org or text “MyBC” to 42411.

Bedsider.org is a fun, clean, interesting and fact-based website that offers great information for no cost. It is an online tool that can help millions of women and will provide a valuable service to its users. Check out some of their videos below.

As the new school year gets ready to kick off, one group of students will have a welcome surprise waiting for them are the public middle and high school students of New York City. New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg announced a new requirement for all students in public schools to receive sex-education classes using a curriculum that instructs students on contraception as well as the appropriate age to begin sexual activity.

According to this morning’s New York Time, “The new mandate is part of a broader strategy the Bloomberg administration announced last week to improve the lives of black and Latino teenagers. According to city statistics, those teenagers are far more likely than their white counterparts to have unplanned pregnancies and contract sexually transmitted diseases.”

The new regulations will require schools to teach a semester of sex-ed in either 6th or 7th grade and then again in 9th or 10th grade. Parents will have the option to “opt- out” their children from the lessons on birth-control methods.

In South Carolina, our State Board of Education approved the newly updated Health and Safety Standards in July 2009. They read as follows: “Family life and pregnancy-prevention instruction is permitted in grades six, seven, and eight at the option of local school boards; STD-prevention instruction is required in these three grades.” We’re making progress, but the New York mandate goes far beyond South Carolina’s requirements- we need to do more.

According to the New York Times, “City officials said that while there would be frank discussions with students as young as 11 on topics like anatomy, puberty, pregnancy and the risks of unprotected sex, the focus was to get students to wait until they were older to experiment. At the same time, knowing that many teenagers are sexually active, the administration wants to teach them about safe sex in the hopes of reducing pregnancy, disease and dropouts.”

Tell Them members have sent a strong message to Secretary Sebelius over the past two weeks. Since the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations we released in July, Tell Them members have sent nearly 250 emails to the Secretary, asking that the department accept the guidelines laid out in the IOM’s report.

This is phenomenal news! Studies have continued to show that prevention is key is reducing many of the health issues we face in both South Carolina and across the nation.

Other services that will be covered include:

• well-woman visits;
• screening for gestational diabetes;
• human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women 30 years and older;
• sexually-transmitted infection counseling;
• human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening and counseling;
• FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling;
• breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling; and
• domestic violence screening and counseling.

Thank you for being an active member of the Tell Them network and for sending a strong message of support to Secretary Sebelius. Because of your efforts, South Carolina had a voice in this important debate and we were able to make a huge difference.

Click here to send a message of thanks HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

On my way to work, I heard a piece on NPR called “Birth Control without Copays Could Become Mandatory” which discussed the release of a report from the Institute of Medicine.

Back when health care reform took over the country, private insurance groups were required to cover all “preventive” health costs- the idea being that prevention is cheaper and easier than paying to fix the bigger illness. This was great- a real, positive step in the right direction.

That’s where the party ended. The Department of Health and Human Services deemed “women’s preventive health” to controversial to include everything right off the bat, and left it up to the Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, to decide what should be included in “preventive care.” Secretary Sebelius asked the highly respected, independent Institute of Medicine to research women’s health and recommend a course of action.

Which they did on Tuesday, July 19, 2011. The Institute of Medicine released their 225 page report titled Clinical Preventive Services for Women: Closing the Gaps. Amongst their many recommendations, the one that made me physically jump up and down was this: birth control is a form of a preventive service, and therefore should be covered 100% by all insurance companies at no cost to its policyholders.

WAHOO!

Other services which the Institute recommends fall under the category of “preventive” include:

• The full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.
• Screen for gestational diabetes in pregnant women between 24 and 28 weeks of gestation and at the first prenatal visit for pregnant women identified to be at high risk for diabetes.
• Screening for human papillomavirus (HPV)
• Annual STD counseling
• Annual counseling and screen for HIV
• Comprehensive lactation support and counseling and costs of renting breastfeeding equipment for nursing mothers
• Domestic violence screen and counseling
• At least one well-woman preventive care visit annually for adult women to obtain the recommended preventive services, including preconception and prenatal care. The committee also recognizes that several visits may be needed to obtain all necessary recommended preventive services, depending on a woman’s health status, health needs, and other risk factors

The report both review and recommended changes to existing HHS policies. For example, which lactation counseling is already included in the HHS guidelines, the IOM recommends covering a comprehensive approach (including the cost of renting a pump and counseling by trained providers) because studies show that breast-feeding can lower the risk of breast and ovarian cancers which simultaneously reducing the child’s risk for asthma, ear infections, gastrointestinal infections, leukemia, obesity, respiratory diseases, sudden infant death syndrome and Type 2 diabetes.

When it comes to coverage of contraception options the report states:

To reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies, which accounted for almost half of pregnancies in the U.S. in 2001, the report urges that HHS consider adding the full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods as well as patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.  Women with unintended pregnancies are more likely to receive delayed or no prenatal care and to smoke, consume alcohol, be depressed, and experience domestic violence during pregnancy.  Unintended pregnancy also increases the risk of babies being born preterm or at a low birth weight, both of which raise their chances of health and developmental problems.

The Institute of Medicine report defines “preventive health services as measures— including educations, procedures, devices, tests, education and counseling—shown to improve well-being, and/or decrease the likelihood or delay the onset of a targeted disease or condition.”

Committee Chair Linda Rosenstock, Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles said, “This report provides a road map for improving the health and well-being of women. The eight services we identified are necessary to support women’s optimal health and well-being.  Each recommendation stands on a foundation of evidence supporting its effectiveness.”

“We are one step closer to saying goodbye to an era when simply being a woman was treated as a pre-existing condition,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who sponsored the women’s health amendment. “We are saying hello to an era where decisions about preventive care and screenings are made by a woman and her doctor.”

While we can’t expect a cakewalk through these final steps, this report is a huge help in getting necessary services to all those who need it. The Obama Administration, through the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, will ultimately decide what constitutes as a “preventive” service.

How can we make sure that Secretary Sebelius and President Obama include these vital services? Send an email to Secretary Sebelius and ask her to support the recommendations of the Institute of Health. HHS has announced that they will make their decision by August 2, so don’t delay. Send your email now!

(P.S. I jump around every time some sends an email too!)

During the summit, we were able to meet with several legislative staff members on Capitol Hill, including both Senators Graham and DeMint. (We were tweeting while in the Capitol Building- thanks to all those who tweeted back messages of support!) We brought numerous fact sheets and reference materials, including our new report Do You Know What You’re Spending on Teen Pregnancy?: A Report on the Public Cost of Teen Pregnancy in South Carolina. The staff members asked a lot of insightful questions and agreed that the number of teen pregnancies in South Carolina is far too high.

Lobbying alongside us was Shannon Flynn, Director of Research and Evaluation at the South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Shannon brought her encyclopedic knowledge of teen birth rates and statistics with her, which helped support our overall messages and illustrated a need for more work to be done. (We also had a fantastic lunch of Ethiopian food – Shannon’s suggestion!)

All in all, the trip to the State Summit was a wonderful opportunity to meet with fellow advocates from across the country on how to bring better sex education to our state. The fight to make sex education a reality in all states is still far from over but with insightful ideas and new ways of thinking, we are closer to bringing responsible reproductive health education and policies to South Carolina.

Thank you to all those who attended and especially to the organizations who held this extraordinary conference.

This simple explanation was clearly not enough to satisfy my sisters’ and my curious minds. We started asking question after question: “How did the baby get in there?”, “Did I ever live in Mommy’s tummy?”, “How does the baby eat?”, and “How is the baby going to get out?” My parents sat there and answered every question with accuracy and truth. They softly and slowly explained about sex and getting pregnant and birth… everything and 7-year old could want to know.

Of course at that age, they couched some things like, “when two people love each other and are married…”: Their answers were appropriate for 7, 6 and 5-year olds. That day was my first experience with age-appropriate sex-education. My 7-year old brain could only hold so much information, and it was information that I had been dying to know, so I was trying to retain all of it.

As the years wore on (my brother Ben was born 7 short months after that conversation), more questions developed. They ranged from “when do I get to start dating” to “how old were you, Mom, when you had sex.” Each conversation, be it with just one of us, or with all 4, my parents would sit down, listen to our questions and answer them openly and honestly. They never seemed uncomfortable or surprised to hear these questions from their children. In fact, I remember one time my Mother looking relieved- like she was saying “FINALLY! I’ve been waiting for this conversation for years!”

I benefitted from wonderful parents in many ways- one in particular being my health education. I think we can all agree that one of the ideal situations for teaching sex-education is for parents to take responsibility and teach their children how to be responsible adults. But not all children have this home life, and not all parents want to discuss these topics.

In the end, the important thing is that I received regular age-appropriate information about the changes my body was going through and what I should be prepared for. It was discussed in a matter-of-fact way, but with people who loved and cared for me. Above all else, it was a safe conversation, and I felt that I could always ask questions when I didn’t know something. They passed on what they knew to me and my siblings- slowly, over time, when we were ready for it.

18 years later- the last baby graduates from high school.

One of the keys to my survival on days like this is my 15-minute Starbucks run. Starbucks is just up the street, and I typically dragoon our intern-turned-executive-assistant, Katie, into coming with me. Katie and I make the 2-minute walk up the street, chatting about our weekends and any drama that has been happening in our lives. We discuss the new layout our Starbucks has utilized (we’re still not sure we like it), and then dive back into conversation about school, boys, work, boys, family, boys and any other topic that crosses our path. Once our drinks are ready (pumpkin spice latte and peppermint hot chocolate in the cold months; iced coffee and iced black tea in the warm), we head back to the office feeling upbeat and cheery. It’s not much of a tradition, but it’s ours.

Katie started with us over two years ago as an intern. In fact, she was working in the office when I came in for my interview. She has returned every semester and has grown more and more into a young woman that we have come to depend on immensely. Katie has been a constant source of laughter, jokes, smiles and giggles for the last 27 months. I think we all have a funny story or memory about Katie (as the new media guru, I have pictures and video – if she’s reading this, she’s blushing just with anticipation of embarrassment.).

Katie was always on time, typically left late, and did any odd job that needed doing. She grew from an intern who learned the ways of the office along with me, and has blossomed into the Executive Assistant to the Executive Director. Sounds standard, but really it means she kept our ED on track and on point. Katie took her calls, messages and helped prepare for meetings. She was the point person on preparation for any Board Meeting. And most importantly, Katie was the keeper of the staff meeting agenda! Katie was a powerful presence.

Katie graduated from the University of South Carolina on Friday. She walked proudly across that stage and earned a degree that she has worked for tirelessly. She has completed this phase of her life and is eagerly moving on to the next. With that degree in hand, I’m sure Katie will conquer whatever task she chooses to take.

But as she moves on to bigger and better things, Katie leaves behind her Columbia family. The phone calls for our ED will go directly to voicemail, someone else will have to handle the agenda and I don’t even want to think about what is going to happen come Board Meeting time. But more importantly, we won’t have that wonderful laughter roaming through the office anymore. We are going to miss you, Katie.

And here I am, getting ready to walk up the street alone. I know that today, I’ll be thinking about my friend, Katie Haswell, and while wishing her well and tons of success, most of all, I’ll be wishing that she was here with me.

CONGRATULATIONS KATIE AND THE CLASS OF 2011

This is a great discussion. I wanted to post it (in addition to having good information) becuse it aired on March 29th, the night before Tell Them advocates went to the SC Statehouse and met with over 50 Senators and Representatives about the importance of prevention programs. Looks like the Colbert Report was wishing us well!

Many people believe HIV isn’t the problem it was 10 years ago. But the number of reported AIDS cases in our state increased nearly 300% between 1998 and 2008. Women are hit particularly hard: AIDS is the third leading killer of women aged 25-34 in the United States.

• South Carolina ranks 4th in the nation for the proportion of people living with AIDS who are African-American. In fact, more than seven out of every 10 newly-diagnosed HIV infections occurs among African-Americans, who represent only one third of our state’s population.
• 1 in 5 new HIV/AIDS new cases reported in SC is among people age 25 and under.
• Of those now living with HIV/AIDS, more than 50% are women. 81% of these women are African American or Hispanic
• HIV is the leading cause of death for African-American men ages 35-44.
• There has been a 65% increase in the number of women with HIV/AIDS in SC between 1998 and 2008.
• In fact, South Carolina ranks 1st in the nation in the percentage of cumulative cases of AIDS from heterosexual contact.
• In 2007, 30% of persons who died from AIDS in SC were African American women.

In a year where drastic budget cuts are being made to all programs, it is encouraging that the Senate Finance Committee has responded to this ongoing epidemic by funding assistance programs.

Click here to thank the Senate Finance Committee for restoring $5 million to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program.

Click here to read Tell Them‘s HIV/AIDS Fact Sheet