Issues to Review with Title V office

Dear Senator

 

I would like to request on behalf of abstinence educators in the state of Washington the hearing of the oversight committee for Title V.

 

In order for this hearing to be productive the department of health should make the following available to members of the legislative oversight committee.

 

• The annual reports from the Title V departments of health office to the maternal and child health office in Washington DC.
• The annual reports of the office of superintendent of public instruction, teen aware program and the reports from the schools that receive money
• A copy of the national request for proposal and a copy of the Washington state application for Title V funds should be matched with the above reports to determine if the department has complied with the Federal government purpose and the state application.
• The evaluation data from the University of Washington research of each of the individual projects should have an annual report that can be submitted.   
• The department needs to give it a projected date for new applications for the new RFP projected publication date.

 

The committee will want to know the recommendations, successes and challenges that the department faced in implementing abstinence education in Washington State.  Additionally the rates of out of wedlock pregnancies being reported in each county should be examined in relationship to the programs being used within that county for sexuality education.

 

Questions that your committee should have answered by this time in the implementation:

• What instrument has been developed by the department to determine compliance with the Federal definition of absence education A–H?
• What accountability measures are in place to insure that abstinence educators under these funds are presenting abstinence until marriage as the expected standard of behavior, medically accurate information, convincing sociological arguments?
• What are the practices or education entities within the agency’s group of services provided to young people besides abstinence education?
• What curricula are being used to teach abstinence in each of the programs? 
• What level of intensity (number of sessions/reinforcements or contact hours) is being presented to students? 
• Describe the level of parental involvement?
• What efforts has the department made to cooperate with other abstinence organizations or develop new programs that teach abstinence? 
• What if any are the plans for the department to include abstinence education within other components of the department of health services? 
• Have the grantees reached their goals for services to be provided in the community? 
• Are there plans to expand abstinence education using this definition to sexuality programs that declare they include abstinence such as the HIV/AIDS programs? 

 

 

 

Please make your comments and then I will send this to Senator --------------.

 

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