Goals
South Carolina's abstinence education efforts are designed to support children and adolescents by promoting abstinence to prevent teen pregnancy and STDs in groups that are most likely to bear children out-of-wedlock. Those groups include youth who are homeless, in foster care, live in geographic areas with high teen birth rates, or come from racial or ethnic minority groups with disparities in teen birth rates. South Carolina's abstinence education program aims to impact the following health indicators:
- Rate of out-of-wedlock births,
- Rate of abortions,
- Number of adolescents 19 years old and younger who engage in sexual intercourse,
- Rate of sexually transmitted diseases, and
- Rate of teenage pregnancies.
Contacts
Interim Program Manager:
Lucy Gibson
(803) 898-1580
gibsonlh@dhec.sc.gov
Program Coordinator:
Vivian McCray
(803) 898-0696
mccrayvr@dhec.sc.gov
Funding Sources
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, administers the "State Sexual Risk Avoidance Education Grant Program" funding as authorized and appropriated by Section 510 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. § 710), as amended by section 50502 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (Pub. L. No. 115-123), and as further amended by section 701 of Division S of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (Pub. L. No. 115-141).
Current State funding is provided through 2018-19 South Carolina Legislative Provisos 34.43 and 34.44.
2018-19 Organizations providing Abstinence Education in South Carolina:
- Bamberg School District Two
- Heritage Community Services
- Live Free, Inc.
- United States Parents Involved in Education (USPIE)