Looking for Love Workshop

Cleveland, OH - On the heels of a report released by the Centers for Disease Control that 1 in 4 teenage girls in America has a sexually transmitted infection, Planned Parenthood is offering a workshop for professional youth workers on the serious issue of teens dating adults.

Looking for Love: Exploring Teen-Adult Relationships will be offered on Thursday, May 1, 2008 at Trinity Commons at Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm. Cost is $25, and 5.5 CEUs for participants through the State of Ohio Counselor and Social Worker Board are pending.

The issue of age-disparate relationships and their effect on reproductive health is the subject of an article in this month’s Family Planning Perspectives.1 The researchers conclude that for female teens, those who have sex with an older partner have greater odds of having a teenage birth and of acquiring an STD by young adulthood. The article states “Our work adds to a growing body of evidence that the combination of having sex at a young age and having an older sexual partner is particularly detrimental especially for STD outcomes among females.”

The interactive workshop provides a framework for prevention and provides professionals with the knowledge, skills and tools they need to become part of the solution. The session will provide an overview of Ohio law as it pertains to teen-adult sexual relationships and information about local resources available for youth who are at-risk. Most importantly, it will provide prevention activities that can be easily implemented with youth individually or in group sessions.

To register, or for more information, contact Kelly Faciana at k.faciana@ppneo.org.

Planned Parenthood of Northeast Ohio is a recent consolidation of Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland, Planned Parenthood of North Central Ohio, Planned Parenthood of Stark County, Planned Parenthood of Summit, Portage and Medina Counties, and Planned Parenthood of the Mahoning Valley. We provide essential reproductive health care services to more than 50,000 women and men in our local Northeast Ohio communities. We serve as a leader in breast and cervical cancer screening and prevention, as well as prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted disease. We supply medically accurate sexuality education to thousands of young people and their parents.

PDFs of all of our press releases and related articles are available in our Media Center.