Panel Puts the Focus on Women : Issues: Among other activities, the county commission hopes to set up programs addressing teen-age pregnancy.

Stacey B. MacDonald’s 16-year-old daughter was invited to three baby showers by her Santa Paula High School classmates during the 1990-91 school year.

Teen-age pregnancy “is becoming an absolute crisis in the county,” said MacDonald, who is the Santa Paula city clerk. “ . . . We have to do something about this.”

Headed by MacDonald, the Ventura County Commission for Women is trying to do just that.

The commission is trying to set up one-on-one mentor programs countywide with businesswomen and high school students, hoping to improve the teen-agers’ self-esteem. The message to the potential young mothers will be: “This is not the right way to do it.”

Preventive measures, such as improvements to sex education courses, are also being investigated by the commission. Marilyn Heins, a guidance counselor at Santa Paula, said birth-control education at the school is distributed, but most of the estimated 60 to 65 pregnant teen-agers at the high school last year chose not to use birth control.

In other areas, commissioners are working to disseminate health-care information to low-income women and increase the representation of women on what MacDonald called “power boards,” such as planning commissions and city councils.

“We’re a group of women that absolutely care,” she said.

The commission has 15 seats, three of them vacant. The others are filled by women whose ages range from mid-30s to early 60s.

MacDonald described herself and the other commissioners as businesswomen who volunteer 15 to 20 hours a week to their cause. The commission was set up in 1981 as an advisory group to the five-member County Board of Supervisors, four of whom are women.

Establishment of the commission represented an insightful move by supervisors, who anticipated that women’s issues would become more critical in the 1980s and on through the 1990s, MacDonald said.

Today, issues such as sexual harassment, domestic violence, day care and the growing number of women in the work force have reached the societal forefront, she said.

The number of reports to the commission on sexual harassment has doubled from about seven a week to 14 since the U. S. Senate hearings for Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas.

The commission refers complainants to the appropriate agency to deal with their problem.

The commission’s office, which is staffed by a part-time person, is housed in the County Government Center in Ventura.