Youth & Parents w/HIV (AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families)

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In a Position to Know:
Youth and Parents Living with HIV Speak Out on Sexuality Education

The sexuality education debate in the U.S. is intense and fiery. It takes place where science and public health intersect with of some of our society’s most private and deeply felt concerns -- family and community values, religion, morality, and human sexuality. The majority of American parents and the AIDS community have consistently supported comprehensive, age-appropriate, science-based sexuality education programs for school-aged youth. Opponents of comprehensive sexuality education maintain that sex education programs must be limited to abstinence-only-until-marriage messages, and these groups have been successful in securing significant federal funding for abstinence-only programs.

In the midst of this clamorous debate, there are some voices that are rarely heard – youth and parents who are HIV positive. Because their lives are uniquely affected by what policy makers decide about sexuality and HIV prevention education, AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families created a forum for them to be heard. In a Position to Know: Youth and Parents Living with HIV Speak Out on Sexuality Education, combines their voices with an analysis of the science underlying both comprehensive and abstinence-only approaches.

AIDS Alliance was founded in 1994 to advocate for women, children, youth, and families living with and affected by HIV. Since our inception, AIDS Alliance has participated in national efforts supporting comprehensive sexuality and HIV prevention education, and, in 2006, we launched the Positive Youth Project to empower HIV-positive youth and parents to speak for themselves. In this first report from the project, AIDS Alliance concludes that abstinence-only approaches endanger youth who are at high risk for HIV infection, further stigmatize youth who are already living with HIV, and fail to support families with parents who are HIV positive and who want their children to have all the information and support they need to stay healthy and make good decisions about their own behavior. While these concerns have sometimes been incorporated in other analyses of sexuality education, they have yet to serve as the central force behind a policy report. AIDS Alliance is confident that this perspective will move the national debate forward in support of responsible, science-based comprehensive HIV prevention and sexuality education for America’s youth.

Executive Summary here (PDF file):

http://aids-alliance.ga3.org/assets/pdfs/Positive-Youth-Report-Executive-Summary-web-version.pdf