Utah Workforce Grant Provides Relationship Education

A new federal grant will provide The Center for Pregnancy Choices in Logan, Utah, with funds to help prevent unwanted pregnancies.

The Center, which focuses on relationship education that extends from romantic relationships to friendships and work life, will use the funds to implement the Denver-based REAL Essentials program at their facility, which teaches sexual risk avoidance, and follows Utah state law.

Funds will also allow The Center to provide date rape drug detection cards that can be used by individuals to check their beverages, as well as continue to offer free pregnancy tests.

The grant proposal by The Center included the option to bring the curriculum to local high schools, with the ability to reach more than 5,000 ninth graders between two school districts, according to Shannon Kegerries, the team training lead at The Center.

The REAL Essentials program meets the criteria of abstinence-only and is a promotion of waiting and pro-marriage,” Kegerries told The Herald Journal. “We have been meeting with the human sexuality committee to get our efforts approved of presenting this in the schools, but it is so preliminary and we have a lot of hopes for it.”

Kegerries said the emphasis on relationship education is what helps make the curriculum a necessity in the community.

When people can do relationships well, they can have job sustainability and less economic strain in their lives,” she said. “We are all in this together and have a stake in the community. Getting into places to teach kids about healthy relationships is important.”

The state grant comes just as the federal government is slashing funding for programs that address unwanted pregnancies at the national level. Last year the Trump administration announced the Department of Health and Human Services was cutting $200 million in funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Program and all prior grant funding would cease by June 2018.