Tell Congress to support funding for DASH & TPPP!

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Tell Congress to support funding for DASH & TPPP!

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Adolescent School Health (DASH) and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP) have played an essential role in maintaining sexual and reproductive health programming for young people nationwide.

DASH works to promote environments in which young people are empowered to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health through collecting and analyzing data that informs action, developing new programming and tools to serve young people, and funding educational programming. Through these efforts, DASH has worked to not only prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unplanned pregnancy, but ensure young people can live healthy, successful lives on their own terms.

TPPP was founded to support national evidence-based programming to support young people in maintaining their overall reproductive and sexual health. The program currently funds 91 grants to communities that are implementing teen pregnancy prevention programs and evaluating innovative approaches to preventing teen pregnancy. Through this programming, TPPP is working to fill gaps in services for young people, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth, youth of color, and youth in foster care and juvenile justice systems.

Despite the intentions of TPPP, the Trump administration has repeatedly attempted to defund the program and manipulate the integrity of its standards by funding ineffective, abstinence based programming that shames and stigmatizes young people. In addition to maintaining funding for TPPP, Congress must act to ensure the program maintains its standards of evidence based programming that is free of bias or medically inaccurate information.

Together, these programs have reached over 3 million young people across the United States, and this number is only increasing. In order to continue and expand such critical programming, it is essential that advocates reach out now to demand their members of Congress to equitably fund these programs in FY 2021.

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SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change
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Tell Congress to support DASH & TPPP!

All House & Senate

Subject: Support funding for DASH and TPPP!

Message:

As a constituent, I'm writing to urge you to support young people’s access to the full range of sex education programs. This must include eliminating funding for the abstinence-only-until-marriage (also referred to as “sexual risk avoidance”) competitive grant program, the latest attempt to repackage harmful programs that have been proven ineffective at their primary goal of young people delaying sex until marriage. Support young people’s access to the full range of sex education programs means providing the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP) with $101 million to support a wide range of evidence-based and informed community approaches to healthy youth development. I urge you to fund in a manner that protects the integrity of the program. In addition, provide $6.8 million in evaluation for Teen Pregnancy Prevention approaches. However, funding TPPP isn’t enough to meet the needs of young people. Congress must prioritize programs that promote environments in which young people are empowered to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health by providing $100 million for CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH). DASH provides assistance to states, districts, and schools in their efforts to support student health and to lead research on a range of adolescent health behaviors. Through these efforts, DASH has worked to not only prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unplanned pregnancy, but ensure young people can live healthy, successful lives on their own terms. As the House Appropriations Committee begins to work on funding for FY 2021, please support $100 million for CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health and $101 million in funding for TPPP, along with language that ensures the program adheres to rigorous standards of evidence and avoids biased or incomplete information. This will allow young people in some of the most marginalized communities to continue to receive the valuable information they need to achieve their goals.

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