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Clinica helps fill gap in sex ed Information provided in Spanish By VICKI GUARINO A new program is breaking the language barrier to sexual education in Jackson County. Thanks to a grant and a special effort by a nonprofit clinic, Hispanic students are getting information about physical and social aspects of sexuality in their native language. Nurses with the Phoenix-based Clinica del Valle, a health and social services agency, hope to reach 100 public school teens with information, brochures and references to community services -- all in Spanish -- before the end of the year. The program has been needed for some time, educators say. "We haven't really touched on that topic," says Laura Weiss, North Medford High School's instructor for the English as a Second Language program. ESL coaches kids through English and all their regular high school subjects. Although ESL students hear sex ed information in their health classes, those classes are in English. "Sometimes they don't understand everything in the regular curriculum," says Weiss. Some of Weiss' students agree that getting the information in Spanish is helpful -- even the those whose English language skills are considerable say they get something more from the clinic's presentation. Clinica staff set up the program in an attempt reduce teen pregnancies among their patients, and prevent the cycle of low education and poverty that often follows. Nurse coordinator Brenda Johnson has no statistics on Hispanic teen pregnancy rates locally, but is certain of the need for education nonetheless. "We certainly see the patients here at the clinic -- the 15-year-old pregnant girls," Johnson says. "We see we're missing the boat." Many of these patients have little knowledge about sexual matters. Clinica nurse Linda Whitlow, who is teaching the classes, says Hispanic teens are hampered both by the difficulty of following health class lectures in English, and by the tendency among Hispanic families to not discuss sexuality. Even some parents, Whitlow has learned from experience, lack solid knowledge about conception. The clinic received a $5,000 grant from the local Oregon March of Dimes to start the education program in middle and high schools. Johnson hopes additional money can be found to continue the effort once the grant has been spent by year's end. Much of the work of the program was in setting up the curriculum and coordinating with county schools. While Johnson and Whitlow found school staffs eager for the assistance, they also discovered that few materials were readily available for sexual education lessons in Spanish. Whitlow figures she spent about a month gathering charts, writing lesson plans and collecting brochures for Spanish speaking classrooms. She began teaching the program a couple of weeks ago. So far, she has been to Phoenix and Crater high schools. She is in North Medford this week, and moves on to South next week. Talent and McLoughlin middle schools are coming up. Initially, Whitlow says, she is targeting schools with large numbers of Hispanic students. Eventually, she wants to get to every middle and high school in the county. She's finding appreciative audiences. "I'm surprised by their seriousness and their candor," Whitlow says. "They are really interested. "This is really getting them thinking about information and being informed." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA