‘Hope’ for women facing unplanned pregnancies

“‘Counterfeit!’ that’s what I tell the kids they have been given, when it comes to information on sex,” Sue Bernsen, executive director of Refuge of Hope, said.

Refuge of Hope is a pregnancy resource center operating in the Calallen area. Bernsen, with eight years of experience as a high school counselor, has launched an informational program of sex education, which has been welcomed into a number of area independent school districts within the county and beyond.

 As a school counselor, Bernsen dealt with teens facing the tragedy of unwise sexual choices such as unplanned pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and abortions.

“We are a faith-based program but we are not here to discuss religion,” Bernsen, a devout Baptist with 40 years of teaching scripture behind her, said.  “We don’t draw the line of good girl, bad girl.  We are here to talk about the physical aspects of sexuality.”

Bernsen believes today’s students have not been told the whole truth about the consequences of sexual activity, experimentation and permissiveness.  In addition to the obvious physical consequences, her presentation also covers the emotional, spiritual and character consequences that are affected by a student’s choice to become sexually active.

A part of the program presents new information on STDs that students may not know. When asked if she had learned anything new, a 15-year-old girl said, “Yup, there’s 25-30 different kinds out there now.” A 17-year-old male said, “Yes, you can get them from just one time.”  Students also learn about the consequences for babies born with Herpes and other STD’s.

Evaluation forms submitted by students at the end of the program show that students felt they had learned something important and thought the program should be presented beginning in middle school.  Several teenage respondents indicated that they were not sexually active.
 
This is in line with new data released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) indicating that the majority of teens are not having sex. This suggests that the abstinence education message is working, Bernsen said.

According to 2006-08 survey results released by the National Center for Health Statistics in March 2011, 68 percent of boys and 67 percent of girls, 15- 17 years of age, have never had sexual intercourse.

Bernsen said this new data indicates overall sexual contact trends are moving in the right direction.
“Our program is free to the schools,” Bernsen said.  “Faith based sex education should be available to our children, especially important since there are those who want to normalize sex among teens and simply offer contraception as a solution. The data from CDC renders ‘null and void’ the ‘abstinence is unrealistic’ claims made by anti-abstinence advocacy groups.

“Sex education should seek to further improve these numbers by providing teens with programs that help them to successfully wait for sex. We want to offer programs that support sexual risk avoidance available to as many youth as possible. This is critical in view of the fact that Texas is number four in the nation in teen pregnancy and Nueces is one of the top counties.”

The sex education program from Refuge of Hope has been offered in five school districts so far. It began after she was asked to address the local Rotary club. Calallen school superintendent Dr. Arturo Almendarez, her former boss, was in the audience. He invited her to come to the school to make a presentation; from there, the program has grown.

Tuloso Midway, Calallen, Banquete, Odem and Robstown have all had presentations. Initial contact for the presentation has been made to Bishop, West Oso, Orange Grove, Agua Dulce, Alice, Mathis, Sinton and Taft.

Bernsen estimates she has spoken to approximately 1,100 students since January 2011.
Though the presentation is not Catholic per se, Bernsen has also spoken to numerous parish religious education classes.

In addition to her work in the schools, Refuge of Hope provides a number of services, including free pregnancy tests and information, medical referrals, parenting and life skills classes, adoption referrals, mentoring, STD information, spiritual counseling, abortion risk counseling and post abortion counseling.

Refuge of Hope is a non-profit, tax-exempt agency supported by voluntary contributions. The center is part of the Care Net Work, which is a national service bureau network of more than 1,000 pregnancy centers, which offer hope to women facing unplanned pregnancies by providing practical help and emotional support.
It is their desire, Bernsen said, that the many of the services offered will empower women to choose life.