SEX AND PREGNANCY: THE REAL DEAL

SEX AND PREGNANCY: THE REAL DEAL

Becky came in from Public Health and gave a fabulous sex and pregnancy training for Teen Link volunteers. We learned a lot about the services the Public Health teen clinics provide. At the teen clinics, if you are under 21, you can get birth control, plan B, condoms, pregnancy testing, and STD testing for FREE. With 7 locations in King County for you to choose from, the teen clinics are very accessible, and of course, they are confidential. Check out their website: http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/locations/teenclinics.aspx

 Becky also informed us about an insurance called take charge which allows women, men, and teens to get free birth control. You must visit a public health clinic to sign up for this insurance. Check it out: http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/personal/insurance/takecharge.aspx .

For show and tell, Becky brought in several goodies. She passed around a birth control patch, a Birth control vaginal ring, and an implantable hormonal contraceptive for all to examine.

We also learned that besides your traditional condom that is placed over the penis, female condoms and dental dams are tools we can use.

Why use a female condom? Some like how they feel; and they are a great way to change things up!

Why use a dental dam? Cold sores around your mouth are a form of herpes that can be transferred to the genitals. Thus, if you have cold sores, using a dental dam can help prevent you from giving your partner genital herpes. They also come in fun flavors like cherry and vanilla. (No pun intended).

Becky discussed the importance of using neutral language when speaking with people who believe they may be pregnant. Avoid phrases like “your baby”, and questions like “are you going to give it up?”

Instead, some questions you might say or ask are: “you’re pregnancy” “how are you feeling about this” “are there any options you are considering?” You can also pass along these resources so that they have somewhere to go to get more information.  

The public health teen clinic is also LGBTQI friendly, and their business card proudly sports a rainbow flag to prove it.

Teen Link would like gives a big thanks to Becky and all the wonderful people who work at the public health sites for creating a safe and private place for people our age to talk about their options.  

~Written and posted by a Teen Link Volunteer~

Fun and Foolishness

Watching people's reaction when they have done something foolish.

"STUPID. door! OPEN! Gah RRRR..."

Trying on someone else's glasses.

"SO. BLURRY. STARTING TO FEEL DIZZY!"


Everyone gets a little cooler with a moustache.

"Ho Hum!"

People are such social beings they not only talk to each other. They also carry on converations with  pets, inademate objects, characters in a movie or tv show.... themselves.

 

"Well hello there!"

How many facial expressions or funny faces can you make?

"What am I feeling now? What about now? And now?"

Tag @Teen Link on your facebook album and show us how many different faces you can make!



20 questions we never think to ask

When walking down the street, entering a house, picking up a book or even just surfing through the web, there are so many things we do without even thinking about them. This article points out 20 odd things to think about that we do or don't usually ever question:

1) Why does the glue in a tube not stick to the tube itself?

2) Academic research has detailed reports stating that from a group of four men or women one will most certainly have a mental ailment of some kind or the other. Think about this calculation: if you have three normal friends, then you unfortunately are the fourth one out. In other words, the fourth person with a mental illness is none other than you.

3) Why do we press down hard on the remote control even though we know that the batteries are weak?

4) Watched old (and even newer descriptions in film) about Tarzan. If he is supposed to be living in the wild, what happened to his beard?


5) Switched those bulbs that are enclosed in tight plastic shutters? Have you noticed that whenever you go to do that there are always dead bugs inside? How did they manage to get there?

6) Why can't we ever manage to open a plastic bag on the first attempt?

7) Why do they use sterilized needles when injecting a convict on death role?

8) Why does a bank take interest on money when your account is overdrawn? From where do they think you are going to pay them? If you had the cash you would have used it, wouldn't you?

9) Why don't we ever hear jokes about father-in-laws?

10) When statistics claim that the sum of all the stars in the sky is about four billion, people believe it. But, when someone sees a sign on a park bench or board stating "wet paint", they must verify this?


11) How many times will be keep coming back and opening the door to the fridge when we are hungry? Do we really think that food will appear there miraculously?

12) Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest but ducks if after the bullets, the gun is thrown at him?

13) I'm sure you've heard of the evolutionary claim that mankind has evolved from monkeys. So why are monkeys still roaming earth?


14) If you are sitting by a table and something is accidentally falling off, don't try and prevent its fall. Why? Every time you try, you will accidentally hit and break something else.

15) Why did the Japanese pilots who were planning to crash into American ships wear helmets?

16) Why do people move a vacuum cleaner over a small piece of thread again and again? Why do we pick it up, examine it and then place it back down and move the vacuum cleaner over it to give it a second chance?

17) How come soap bubbles are always white no matter what the colour of the soap?


18) Is it winter or summer wherever you are right now? Have you noticed that if it is summer we try and make the house as cold as it would be during winter, and if it is winter, we try and make the house as hot as it would during summer?

19) Why is it that whenever you walk past a mattress dealership, they have large signs advertising a big price reduction?

20) Isn't it silly that when if wandering through one of the large shopping malls someone doesn't pay attention and the cart they are pushing smacks into your toes, and then they say sorry, all we can think of saying is that no harm was done while your toe is aching.

Before I End:

Above you have run into about twenty or so intriguing incidents in life that we often come across. Most will be familiar to you. Some might not. But, I hope that each one of them will if not make you at least laugh, bring a smile to your face and to your heart.


Author: Actively seeking out the humour out of every situation, Rammy Johnson.
Article Directory: http://www.articlecube.com

The Truth About Human Beings

THE TRUTH ABOUT HUMAN BEINGS

Sometimes it is nice to just hold someone's hand.

We need to cry... Let us.

We never really get old.

We may be stronger than we look or appear stronger than we feel.

We dance/walk/live in many different shoes.

We spill things. Laugh about it!

Sometimes we fall apart and feel like nothing can put us back together.

There is not a whole lot we can control, but when we find something we can
we grab on for dear life!



PINTEREST: THE NEW FACEBOOK?

  Although 1 in 7 people in the world have a Facebook account, this site now faces much competition. Be it Twitter or Tumblr or Google+, or the new Pintrest, each has become extremely popular. Having many same features as Facebook such as comments and likes, Pintrest allows users to share pictures, designs, ideas and to give and receive input on the images. Many people use Pintrest to design their weddings, parties, and large event! It allows people to really enhance their creativity and passion for their work.

Pintrest can be very fun and useful for teens to get input and advice on how to decorate their lockers, bedrooms, or dorm rooms! High school students can also use this site to design team sweatshirts or spirit gear for their schools. Post themes for school dances, thoughts about gifts to give to people, or even ideas for graduation parties and receive all sorts of opinions. Either way, Pintrest provides people of all ages an easy and unique way to share different perspectives!

Check it out and tell us what you think!

http://pinterest.com/

To learn more about Teen Link, follow us on our facebook or twitter.

“Happy pinning!”

A call for change

By ROSS COURTNEY

The Yakima Herald-Republic

Rob McKenna, state attorney general and Republican gubernatorial candidate, has made human trafficking the primary agenda for his term as president of the National Association of Attorneys General. The organization is considering placing an advertisement decrying the problem during this year's Super Bowl.

Last Wednesday, McKenna collected more than 270,000 signatures on a petition calling for even more law changes that would cement the notion that children involved are victims.

Prostitution is a crime, and police arrest girls for it — even if they are younger than 16, the state's age of consent. The fear of prosecution leaves girls, often trapped by drug addiction and threats, unwilling to report their problems to authorities when they are picked up. McKenna knows of instances in high-profile Seattle cases of teenage girls lying on the witness stand to protect their accused pimps because they were afraid or had been psychologically manipulated.

McKenna agreed state laws should better define the problem.

"I come down on the side recognizing these girls as victims," he said.

However, he is reluctant to completely decriminalize prostitution, even for younger girls, because it would take away a tool for police to intervene and steer the kids toward help.

In the Yakima Valley, juvenile sex trafficking often is tied to gangs, say victim advocates and police.

In a typical scenario, an older gang member convinces a 14-year-old he loves her, introduces her to drugs and asks for sexual favors, first for himself, then for his gang mates as a way to boost his status, recruit new members and make a profit for the gang by pimping her out.

It's going on, but officers have trouble saying how much.

"We definitely know that it's happening," said Sgt. Brenda George of the Yakima Police Department's special assault unit.

Police routinely investigate child sexual-abuse and prostitution complaints, but pinning it to trafficking is a new idea, George said. Many victims end up in juvenile court for drug and violence charges but never say a word about prostitution.

An extra stigma

Few victims of gang crimes report problems for fear of retaliation, while prostitution carries an extra stigma that makes information even harder to come by.

"Because of that, it makes it even more invisible and even more insidious than it already is," said Leslie Briner, associate director of residential services for Seattle agency YouthCare and a child-prostitution consultant.

Mojica fears all this has claimed her daughter.

When she was as young as 11 or 12, Jessica dated heavily tattooed older gang members and sneaked out at night with them to parties as far away as Mattawa, Grant County, Mojica said.

The girl told her mother some of them gave her marijuana and that she often threatened to beat up her younger brother Alexis, now 10, if he told on her.

The single mother lost count of how many times her daughter ran away.

Once, the mother received a menacing phone call in which a male voice said something to the effect of,

"We have your daughter but you'll never see her again if you call the police."

Scared, Mojica complied that time, but has worked with the police over the years. She tried grounding, yelling and even left Jessica overnight in jail one time. She has since attended counseling and parenting classes.

But she blames herself anyway.

"I feel guilty," she said. "I should really have paid more attention to Jessica."

Sex Trafficing: Hear her story

Jessica's Story: The Story of So Many

By ROSS COURTNEY

The Yakima Herald-Republic

SUNNYSIDE, Yakima County — Neatly stored in a closet of Maria Mojica's one-bedroom apartment are school supplies, clothing and crafts she keeps ready and waiting for her daughter Jessica Estrada.

They've been there for a year.

On Jan. 13, 2011, the teenager cried after getting a mysterious phone call, pushed past Mojica and hopped a fence into missing-child reports and her mother's darkest fears.

Mojica admits she doesn't know for sure, but she suspects Jessica, now 14, is caught up in the sinister world of teen prostitution.

A history of dating older gang members, sightings with men near Yakima motels, social-media pictures in which she looks pregnant — all inconclusive clues of her daughter's life.

"It's like I'm missing half of my heart," she said.

But if Mojica's fears are true, Jessica is part of a sad tale that state officials, police, child-welfare officials and society at large are just beginning to grasp: Children are bought and traded for sex and can't get out. Making things worse, the welfare and justice system in many ways categorizes them as criminals.

"They're victims, first and foremost," said Suzi Carpino, a sex-trafficking case manager for Sunnyside's Promise, a nonprofit youth organization trying to help Mojica and families like hers.

Advocates like Carpino say a new awareness is taking hold, but there's a long way to go.

Congress is now debating whether to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a 2000 law that made human trafficking a federal crime.

Part of the delay has been difficulty quantifying the problem.

The federal government calls human trafficking a $32 billion global industry, tied with arms dealing for second behind the drug trade.

It includes forced or coerced labor, as well as anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 children at risk of sexual exploitation in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, but anti-trafficking advocates are known to criticize even those figures as either over- or underestimated.

No statistics have been compiled for Washington, though a 2008 city of Seattle human-services report estimated that between 300 to 500 children in King County were involved with prostitution, based on records from juvenile court and social-service cases.

New resources for victims have opened, including a long-term residential recovery home in Seattle.

State laws that took effect in 2008 increased penalties for pimps and johns, and this year lawmakers plan to introduce multiple bills to combat trafficking, including minors used on escort websites, according to Sen. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland.

The U.S. Attorney's Western Washington offices have successfully prosecuted at least seven human-trafficking cases within the past two years and average between 20 and 30 cases per year.

See a call for change to read more....

Safe Sex: Being Safe With Your Body and Your Heart

COME JOIN TEEN LINKERS AT:

*Not Just Queer: A Deeper Look at Identity*
As young people we want to be aware of the intersectionalities of race,
class, ability, gender, sexuality, and age. We all come with many
different identities which in turn affect how we view the world and how
the world views us. Join Kyle and Emery as we take a closer look at
gender and sexuality!

*Who: *Young people ages 13-25
*When:* Saturday, January 21st, 12-2pm
*Where:* Seattle Counseling Services (1216 Pine Street, Suite 300) on
Capitol Hill

Space is limited! Sign-up now.
For more information, accessibility questions or to register,contact
Kristina: kristina@nwnetwork.org kristina@nwnetwork.org

or
(206) 568-7777.

How am I going to pay for college?

The question is a big on the mind of every kid as they prepare to apply for college.   Although the question is huge, the number of options to finance college is limited to parents, scholarship, financial aid or jobs. If your parents can pay for college, that is great, but if they can’t or won’t then it becomes your responsibility to take on jobs and student loans. Many colleges have great financial aid programs to help students finance their education.  There are also various scholarships, based on school and extracurricular activities, race, and gender which are available to students.   Colleges also have many job opportunities, such as working at the library or sports facilities. However, I would recommend really finding a job that is in line with your interests and could also help you in your career of choice. However, a job is very time consuming and impedes your college activities.   Therefore, a good idea is to take on a greater workload during the summers of high school, and college so that you can save up more money and work less during school.

Here is a link to brain storm ideas on how to pay for college:

http://www.studentbank.com/featured/101-ways-to-pay-for-college/

Good luck,

Teen Link.