SPOKANE, Wash. — A Spokane nonprofit is offering Spokane families and students $20 upon completing its sexual education program intended to "delay sexual activity."
LeAnna Benn, who serves as director of Teen-Aid, said federal funding for the Alternative Healthy Family Formation program was made available under the Obama administration.
In 2018, the Trump administration also adopted a new strategy for issuing tens of millions of dollars in federal family-planning grants, giving preference to groups that stress abstinence, according to the Associated Press.
Teen-Aid is aimed at "reducing premarital sexual activity and its many consequences," according to the nonprofit's description.
A recent story in The Spokesman-Review said Teen-Aid's program is abstinence-based but Benn denied this, saying it is intended to “delay sexual activity.”
Benn said various chapters in the program focus on avoiding date and acquaintance, dating violence, communication and refusal skills, reproductive anatomy and sexual consent, among other topics.
The 547-page curriculum was also written and examined by three OB-GYNs, she added.
An editorial published in The Spokesman-Review also claims that the $20 is a “bribe” for kids to opt out of Spokane Public Schools' sexual education curriculum, which Benn also denied.
Benn instead called the money a “reward” for families who complete the course and said the program is not encouraging teens to opt out of sexual education in schools.
“It’s not a bribery. Everyone that’s ever done a research project has had to do something for the people in the project,” Benn added.
“Most parents don’t want their kids sexually active at 12, 14 years old,” she continued.
Spokane Public Schools spokesperson Brian Coddington called the money an “enticement” for taking Teen-Aid's "abstinence program."
In November, Spokane Public Schools told KREM it was revamping its sex education curriculum for ninth graders.
Part of the new SPS curriculum will be provided by Advocates for Youth. The organizations's "3R's" curriculum addresses subjects like dating violence, sex readiness and gender ifentity.
Just about half the states in the U.S. require public schools to provide some type of sex education. Others leave it up to the individual school districts and provide less oversight.