Is it easy to integrate teen pregnancy prevention with HIV/STI prevention and treatment?
Youth-serving professionals, including educators and health care providers, face barriers to integrating HIV, STI and teen pregnancy prevention. Planners can face separate funding streams, complex administrative arrangements, lack of understanding by staff and the public, and an historical separation of the fields. Specific challenges can include the following: • Educational policies and/or school board mandates may impose restrictions regarding the topics of pregnancy, HIV, and STIs. • Separate funding streams can complicate grant-seeking and/or grant reporting, and some funding sources may limit or prohibit the use of comprehensive approaches to preventing pregnancy, HIV and/or STIs. • Organizations may lack financial resources to adequately address all three issues (pregnancy, HIV, and STIs). • Staff may feel discomfort about and/or lack skills to deal with behaviors and topics outside their primary field. Staff may also fear that integration is a euphemism for downsizing. • Organiz
