Help comes for parents lost in a teen world
A Web site created by students gives teens the skinny on challenging issues when Mom and Dad are clueless.
By Times Staff Writer
Published January 16, 2008
ST. PETERSBURG
Pregnancy, nutrition and drugs are just a few of the challenging issues parents face when raising a teenager.
Teens have questions, but parents don't always have the right answers.
A Web site has been created by the Teen Health Alliance as a resource for teenagers to get information and answers to these sensitive health and life topics.
Teenvillage.org was created by teens, for teens. A group of five seniors at Lakewood High School make up the TeenVillage Council.
"A lot of parents don't take the initiative to talk to them or want to talk about these kinds of issues. This Web site will help parents to learn more and be more open with their kids," said Rachel Janssen, 17.
Bob "Bo Jan" Janssen, a member of the Pinellas County Health Department's Teen Health Alliance Steering Committee, wanted to create a way to reach teens through a new outlet and turned to his daughter, Rachel, for help.
After consulting with her, he applied for a $7,400 grant to jumpstart the online project.
A year later the National Association of County and City Health Officials approved the grant, and the idea became a reality.
The Web site is promoted within Pinellas County but is open to anyone who can access the Internet.
Everything from the color of the font to the placement of the images was designed and approved by the student council.
"The students were able to talk directly to the Web site designers from Interlogicmedia Inc. If they didn't like something and thought it wouldn't work, they told them," Bob Janssen said.
The site is divided into four main categories of issues: physical, mental, social and sexual. Chosen by the students, these topics were regarded as the most pertinent issues that they feel teens face and need the most information.
"It even gives statistics that parents can use if they talk to their kids," said Sean Danner, 17, mayor of the council.
The Web site has a forum for teens to ask specific questions to other teens registered on the site.
An e-mail address is required to register and use the forum. The questions and answers are monitored by the TeenVillage Council, and confidentiality is assured.
The new site has had more than 6,000 visitors and 90 registered teens since October.
"This is not a social network. It is an information source to teens and we used the best way to reach them, the Internet," Bob Janssen said.
Council members will graduate in May, and they are looking for teenagers with leadership abilities to contribute to the growth of this Web site.
Teens ages 13-19 may apply for a position and receive volunteer hours in the process. The applications along with the answers to some of the most complicated questions can be found at the Web site www.teenvillage.org.
"If one teen logs on and reads the information they need and that helps them, let's say to prevent pregnancy, then I think this Web site has done its job," Danner said.
Emmalee Schmidt is a reporter for the Neighborhood News Bureau, a program of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.