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Omaha's Adolescent Health Project is Changing the Entire System of Care

The Adolescent Health Project, a program of the Women’s Fund of Omaha, was started in 2014 as a direct response to the alarming STD rates Douglas County had had for more than two decades.

Brenda Council, Adolescent Health Project Manager, says there are four priority areas for the program, the first is to assist in the implementation of comprehensive sex education in schools. 

She says the second priority is to increase capacity among clinical providers in Omaha to provide youth-friendly, barrier-free access to STD testing, treatment and condom distribution. 

Education and outreach is the third area of focus and raising community awareness about STD rates is the fourth and final priority. 

She says the program is designed to increase the sexual knowledge of adolescents while decreasing the number of STDs and pregnancies in that age group.

"The research has shown that parents (and we know this is a fact) are the primary educators when it comes to young people’s knowledge about sexual health and healthy relationships.  But what our data was showing was that those conversations weren’t occurring.  So we just want to focus parent and child on the need to engage in these conversations, to obtain as much accurate information as they could.”

Council says the AHP launched several innovative initiatives including free contraception, a media campaign for teen pregnancy prevention and comprehensive sex education in Omaha Public Schools.

For more information, the website is OmahaWomensFund.org