by Sara Perman

Listen here!

Lisa Rea of the Reproductive Health Clinic

What are you obligated to do about confidentiality? What are you obligated to do for someone who is 13 years old, who comes in here?  

Teens are allowed to get services here without their parental consent, but we always encourage parental involvement or involvement with another trusted adult with that person. Any sort of abuse or neglect we are obligated to report. And so that could be an issue as far as sexual abuse or physical abuse or any other neglect or concerns, we would report that.

How involved are families then, when kids come in here?

It just depends. Some teens do come in with their parents and we think that's great. And we do encourage, when teens start coming in that they talk with their parents about the fact that they are coming here or with another adult if they can't talk with their parents about it, because unfortunately that is the case for some teens.

Hypothetically, what would happen if I was a teenage girl, in high school and I came in looking for birth control?

Initially you would walk into the clinic, you'd be asked if you were a walk-in client or had already called for an appointment. You'd have a form to fill out for what services you are looking for and speak with somebody up at the front desk. Hopefully you'd be able to be seen right away, and then you'd speak with the nurse about what it is that you interested in. And then a history, medical history about any conditions that you have and then education and information on contraception, as well as screening for abuse, sexual coercion. We always talk about abstinence because that is the only 100 percent way to protect somebody against unplanned pregnancy and also sexually transmitted infections. But then we want to make sure for that people who don't choose abstinence, that they are aware of other options as far as being faithful with one partner, whether that is marriage or just being faithful. And also condom use as well.

Enzina Marrari of Planned Parenthood

What sort of education do you offer at Planned Parenthood to teens?

Well primarily, we go out to the high schools and the school districts and different institutions and give lessons or lectures or do programs on a wide variety of topics including birth control, STIs, healthy relationships, pregnancy, pregnancy prevention, abstinence, safe sex and we also do education on GLBTQ, which is Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, Transgendered or Queerious issues. Other than the educational services we do a wide variety of clinical services. So we do screenings for pregnancy, screenings for Sexually Transmitted Infections, also screening for cancer…We do pregnancy options counseling.

The main purpose of Planned Parenthood is to offer our services to the community all members and aspect of the community we want to give people the tools that they could use that would keep them from getting in a situation, which would cause them to have an unplanned pregnancy or to contract an STI.

Who uses your services?

Well, a wide variety of people use our services and we see the most clients in age group of early 20s about 20 to 25, I would say.