WISH LIST $100: food and activites for a Youth Leadership Task Force meeting; $500: trainers and resources for "Talk is a Four-Letter Word," an adult/child communication worship for parents; $1000: a Best Practices Coalition meeting for DC youth-workers

Teen pregnancy is costly in many ways: it causes young mothers to drop out of school, increases the risk of abuse and neglect to their children, and consumes almost half the combined budgets of the DC Departments of Health and Human Services. That's why the DC Campaign has been on a mission to improve the lives of local adolescents by cutting the District's teen pregnancy rate in half by 2015. Their method? Stop shaming and blaming teenage girls and get the whole community--men and boys, parents, schools, and churches--involved in the effort. A Youth Leadership Task Force meets to develop leadership and advocacy skills, and Teen Town Hall meetings provide opportunities for teens to share their ideas. Roundtables open to the entire community discuss school-based health care and emergency contraception, and workshops for parents stress having "the talk" and train parents to hold workshops of their own. The Campaign gets the word out through mailings, media, internet, and annual awards recognizing prevention efforts--and the work has paid off: the teen pregnancy rate has declined from 152.1 per 1000 girls in 1997 to 64.4 in 2005 (the most recent data available). But there is still much to be done. Rates like these mean little to the newest groups of twelve-year olds: you can reach out to them too.

Brenda Rhodes Miller, Executive Director 1112 11th Street NW, Suite 100 Washington, DC 20001 202 789-4666 ext 11 www.DCCampaign.org