Most schoolchildren in Tooele County know what a daisy represents.
The local health department uses the white and yellow flower as a symbol of sexual abstinence as part of a program to reduce the high teenage pregnancy rate in the northwestern Utah county. The letters in the word daisy stand for "Do Abstain It Saves You."And that's the message the Tooele County Youth Pregnancy Prevention Team has sent to youths the past two years, though initial proposals to talk to youngsters about sex met vehement resistance in the community.
Sherrie Ahlstrom, the health department's nursing director, explained at Intermountain Health Care's Healthy Communities Conference Wednesday how the county overcame opposition to implement what she hopes will be a successful effort to prevent teens from having babies.
"We are going to see that the pregnancy rate drops yet," she said.
The health department felt compelled to do something about the county's teenage pregnancy rate, which has been the highest among all health districts statewide the past seven years "for reasons none of us know," Ahlstrom said.
Adolescent pregnancies among girls ages 15 to 19 is 63 per 1,000. Teen births comprise 17 percent of total births in the county, which is 6 percent higher than the state average. Of all teen births in Tooele County, 20 percent are repeat births, according to the health department.
Ahlstrom attempted to get the program going with a simple newspaper ad inviting people to a community meeting to talk about the problem and how to address it. About 50 of the county's most conservative residents showed up, and all of them were ready to fight any notion of talking to children about pregnancy and sex, she said.
"The whole meeting was a disaster. It was very frustrating for us. Nothing was accomplished, to say the least," Ahlstrom said. In fact, some health department workers were so put off by the vitriolic crowd that they refused to pursue the idea further.
But Ahlstrom slogged ahead. She decided to personally invite business leaders, school administrators and government officials to a private meeting. She even extended an invitation to a couple of the most vocal critics from the previous meeting.
A prolonged brainstorming session ensued. The result was the program's basic tenet: abstinence before marriage is the only 100 percent effective means to prevent pregnancy. The committee formed to develop an action plan was headed by none other than one of those vocal critics.
"They were our biggest supporters," Ahlstrom said.
Tooele County obtained a grant from the Utah Department of Health for the program, which has several components, including parenting classes, in-school courses and community awareness. It specifically targets children ages 9 to 14.
The county publishes a pamphlet titled "Sex: How to Talk About It With Your Kids." The daisy sticker-wearing pregnancy prevention team preaches the "A" word to schoolchildren. A building contractor donated space on a billboard sign in town that touts abstinence.
It's too early to tell whether the 2-year-old program is effective, Ahlstrom said. But several small signs indicate some success, she said, including a community that is now willing to talk about the issue.