Passage of the Healthy Teens Act will ensure that Connecticut's youth have access to medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education providing them with the necessary skills to make safe and responsible choices surrounding their sexual health.
In a recent poll conducted by Lake Research (March 2008), Connecticut voters express a significant level of urgency around providing comprehensive sex education in public schools. They strongly prefer that sex education be comprehensive, age appropriate and medically accurate and they largely reject abstinence-only programs. This sentiment crosses partisan lines and pro-choice and anti-choice voters alike express a preference for medically accurate sex education.
Did you know?
The Healthy Teens Act will help ensure that Connecticut's young people have access to comprehensive, age-appropriate, medically accurate information. The Department of Education will offer incentive grants to interested schools who want to do a better job in delivering comprehensive, medically accurate sexuality education to teenagers, teachers, or parent/guardian training programs. The purpose of these grants will be to support programs that provide age appropriate sex education to students and to support programs that train teachers or educate parents on providing sexuality education to their children.
Learn more about the Healthy Teens Act »
What is comprehensive sex education?
Comprehensive sex education is responsible and balanced sexuality education that seeks to assist young people in understanding a positive view of sexuality, provide them with information and skills about caring for their sexual health, and help them acquire skills to make decisions now and in the future. It is medically accurate and provides information about abstinence and contraceptives as tools to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
1. State of Connecticut, Department of Public Healthy, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 2006
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8. State of Connecticut, Department of Public Health, Connecticut School Health Survey (2005)