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Lunch with Ernest

Teens' adviser a voice of hope

By ERNEST HOOPER
Published May 20, 2005

Lisa Colen wears a number of hats as Hillsborough County's teen pregnancy prevention coordinator and a community liaison for the Healthy Start Coalition.

She divides her time between teen pregnancy community groups, counseling pregnant women in the Hillsborough County Jail and coordinating Healthy Start's awareness campaign about fetal alcohol disorders.

ERNEST: You're working with pregnant women who are incarcerated at the Falkenburg Road Jail. Tell me about it.

LISA: They can have as many as 40 a day in jail. They get really good care when they're there. When they leave, we're trying to connect the dots because a lot of them leave with no support system, no type of training. They're considered very high risk.

If you're incarcerated and you're pregnant, I would imagine finding hope would be pretty difficult.

It's funny you should say that because we have this really great group from the community that's working together on all these issues. As a committee, they came up with the idea to make a documentary with women who have been in this situation who have really gotten their lives together. We want to send messages to people who are like them that it's possible. These women have some really desperate stories. You cannot talk to them and not want to do something about it.

What are some of them arrested for?

There's some drug-related charges, but not always. Bad checks, DUI. They came in with such a multitude of problems. I talked to one woman who purposely got arrested because she was very sick, on the street and pregnant. She got arrested for trespassing because she knew she needed to get some place safe. For some people, it's about the safest place they'll be.

These are difficult, emotionally raw stories. How do you maintain a positive approach?

I've done a lot of mental health advocacy work. It's what I first did. I've seen a lot of bad stuff. People will say, Do you take it home at night? I just don't. I don't know if I compartmentalize it or what. I think I get satisfaction that I put my energy and mind to work to solve these problems. If I have a particularly upsetting situation, it makes me work harder, and I work with a lot of people like that. The rate is reducing, technically. We still have an extremely high rate compared to other areas. Statistically, we cannot find anything that really pinpoints what's going on in Hillsborough County that continues to keep us at the top of the list. We just know that we have a lot of girls 17 and under who are showing up pregnant. If you add the 19 and under, which we usually don't, the number almost doubles.

What about abstinence? What's flawed with just telling our kids no?

If you look at the health-risk survey from our high schools, 47.2 percent of the kids are graduating and telling us that they had intercourse when they were in high school. Why are we going to stand in front of them in say no? It's too late. They actually tell us that they almost laugh. The lady is standing there saying abstinence only and they've been having sex for two years.

But a lot of people are going to read this and say "You're not talking about my kid."

I taught for eight years in Hillsborough County, and I was in a middle school. The kids are in the know. They're exposed to a lot more. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, I don't judge that. But if we know we have a generation that's being exposed to more information, I think it's the responsibility for the older generation to provide them information to deal with that. The cat's out the bag and I highly doubt we're going to put the cat back in the bag.

Historically, we never have put the cat back.

We changed the rules on kids. When we went to high school, some people went to college, some people got married. Most young women got married and had children in their early 20s. Now the average age for marriage is 27 for a woman, and you're going to tell her to stay abstinent until she's 27. It doesn't go. We switched the rules, but we haven't told them how to deal with that.

And at the same time, they're getting the biological, physiological signals to have sex.

It's so controversial and I don't tell parents what to do with their kids or what is right. We want all the kids to be abstinent because sex brings a level of responsibility that most adults have a hard time dealing with. We don't want kids involved, but our own statistics show us that they are. So I think we need to make some decisions about what kind of information to give them instead of pounding them with irrelevant messages.

You have two sons who are 11 and 8. When are you going to start talking to them about sex?

I will admit I talk to other people's children much better than I talk to my own. I am not afraid to say that. The school's done a good job of giving my older son some preliminary information and we always chitchat about it. I try to pawn it off on my husband and he always says you're the health educator. I think I'll be pretty honest.

How do you balance work and family?

I think I like to live like a duck. I swim gracefully on the top and then paddle furiously underneath. Can I wait until my kids graduate to answer that question? Actually, I think, so far, so good. I spend a lot of time with them and I have a job that allows me to work at home sometimes. As a working mom, we have that guilt, but I think me and a lot of my friends enjoy our careers. I think I'm a good role model and I like them to see a working mother because that's likely what they're going to marry into. Those June Cleaver days are over.

DESSERT: A postscript from Ernest

Colen, 41, believes working mothers have been unfairly targeted as one of the causes of teen pregnancy. She noted that a recent survey indicated kids are getting pregnant not during the afternoon when moms might be at home, but between midnight and 2 a.m. inside their own house. While much of teen pregnancy prevention focuses on women, Colen said Healthy Start is working with Big Brothers/Big Sisters to find more men to be role models for young males. In fact, relationships with adults, be it parents, teachers, coaches, etc., are often cited as one of the biggest keys to preventing teen pregnancy as well as drug and alcohol addictions.

Ernest Hooper also writes a column for the Tampa & State section of the St. Petersburg Times. Lunch With Ernest is edited for brevity and clarity. To suggest lunch partners, call Ernest at 226-3406 or e-mail hooper@sptimes.com

[Last modified May 19, 2005, 08:41:13]