UU’s in Vero Beach Start Health-E Teens Coalition

One of the highlights of being the national organizer for Promise the Children is learning about programs Unitarian Universalists have created to help children and youth.

Claudia Jimenez, the Director of Lifespan Religious Education at the UU Fellowship of Vero Beach, recently told me about the Health-E Teens Coalition (HETC). HETC is a grassroots organization promoting factual health information for youth, including comprehensive sexuality education. Jimenez started HETC with a fellow Unitarian Universalist parent, Judy Orcutt.

Jimenez explains how Our Whole Lives (the Unitarian Universalist sexuality education program) inspired her and Orcutt:

“We are both trained [middle-school and high-school] OWL facilitators and are very impressed with the quality of the curriculum and the wonderful activities. However, OWL reaches mostly progressive families and we are appalled with the pregnancy and STI rates in our county. This type of education should be available to all children. The abstinence-only education in our schools is simply not working, and it is time to try to do something about it.”

HETC is a model for how Unitarian Universalists can promote sexuality education on the local level. Last week, HETC held an educational event titled “What Every Parent Needs to Know About the HPV (Human Papillomavirus) Vaccine.” The event was held in a secular community center and was open to the public. Jimenez and Orcutt have also been interviewed in the local media about HETC.

For more information about you can support the Health-E Teens Coalition, please contact Claudia Jimenez at

Revised 4:50pm on 2/26/07