Classes to Curb Teen Pregnancy Expanded

A statewide teen pregnancy prevention program will be extended to San Fernando Valley junior high schools, officials said Thursday.

The program, dubbed Education Now And Babies Later (ENABL), will serve about 5,000 youths at eleven middle schools, teaching seventh-grade students in health classes to postpone sexual involvement until marriage.

“There weren’t a lot of teen pregnancy prevention programs in the Valley and we want to deal with prevention,” said Alexx Tobeck ENABL project coordinator, who said in 1992 there were 1,686 births to teen-age mothers 18 and younger in the Valley.

Junior high schools participating in the program are James Madison, Walter Reed, Pacoima, San Fernando, Richard E. Byrd, Olive Vista, Van Nuys, William Mulholland, Mt. Gleason, Charles Maclay, and Francisco Sepulveda.

The program is free to students with their parents’ permission. Each school will allow parents to review the materials before the instruction begins in October.

Participating schools will also offer a parent communication workshop, which Tobeck said is crucial to improving dialogue about sex between students and their parents.

“A lot of parents are real uncomfortable about how to talk to their teens about sex and sexual issues,” said Tobeck. “But teens will get the information somewhere, and it’s usually not the information the parents want them to have.”

Once in the program, students will conduct role-playing exercises and skits to learn how to reject sexual advances without hurting someone’s feelings. They will also learn how to avoid peer pressure and media influence that encourage premarital sex, Tobeck said.

Begun in 1991, the state-funded, $5-million ENABL program has reached 185,000 students in junior high schools across California.

The new Valley effort is being run by the nonprofit El Nido Family Centers and the Northeast Valley Health Corp. with a $315,000 grant from the California Office of Family Planning. The program will run for three years.

For more information on the ENABL program, or to enroll a student, contact the participating school in your area or Tobeck at El Nido Family Center, (818) 908-5003.