• Assemble a panel of judges to select winners. This is a great opportunity to involve community leaders, such as the mayor, a juvenile court judge, a school superintendent, a news anchor, a newspaper publisher, business leaders, faith leaders, and other civic leaders.
• Hold an awards ceremony with prizes donated from local businesses, such as computers, video cameras, bicycles, books, CDs, a chance to be a guest anchor on a local news program, a course in video production, or an opportunity to intern at a local public relations firm.
• Seek press coverage for the awards ceremony.
• Display the award winners publicly on billboards, shopping bags, posters, or postcards.
• Use a winning PSA as part of a larger public awareness campaign.
• Work with a local radio or TV station to produce and air a broadcast PSA.
• Solicit business sponsors to pay for the production and distribution of the PSA.

Click here for more information on educating policymakers.
Click here for more information on holding a contest for teens.

Provide training to teens on advocacy, public speaking, and working with the press.

• Offer sessions on lobbying, polling, public speaking, being a spokesperson for teen pregnancy prevention, writing letters to the editor, holding a press conference, and organizing long-term advocacy strategies and public relations campaigns.
• Use local people and organizations to provide the training, including political science, communications and journalism professors; the League of Women Voters and political parties; registered lobbyists and pollsters; elected officials and their campaign offices; public affairs professionals from Planned Parenthood; and Toastmasters or other public speaking groups.
• Organize visits for teens to educate their elected officials about teen pregnancy prevention.
• Provide each teen with a certificate of completion.
• Follow up on the training by organizing regular meetings for the teens to use their new skills in useful ways: (1) writing letters to the editor or elected officials, (2) brainstorming ideas for positive stories about teens that the newspaper could pursue, (3) briefing the press or meeting with a newspaper editorial board, (4) meeting with their elected officials, and (5) learning more through additional classes, internships, or mentorships.

Organize youth forums for an audience of elected officials.

• Encourage teens to help plan and host a forum at which they talk about concerns in their lives and policymakers listen and respond.
• Possible topics for a youth forum include: how the parents and other adults in their lives help or could help them, peer pressure, sex education and abstinence education, the influence of the media, heroes (many teens say their parents are their heroes), why the U.S. has such high rates of teen pregnancy, and what adults can do to decrease rates of teen pregnancy.
• Have teens survey other teens for specific stories about teen pregnancy, information on what is working in programs and what is not, and accounts of the biggest challenges facing young people.

Click here for more information on educating policymakers.
Click here for more information on conducting a teen forum.

Launch a new youth involvement initiative.

• Find one of the many ways to involve youth - from starting a new program to soliciting a teen perspective in an existing initiative.
• Start a peer education program or teen theater troupe.
• Organize peer tutoring, counseling, or mentoring for other teens or younger children.
• Create a newsletter, magazine, web site, or brochure for teens by teens.
• Ask a teen to help judge project proposals for local teen pregnancy prevention programs.
• Add teens to your Board of Directors or form a youth advisory group.

Develop a public awareness campaign based on input from youth.

• Include messages developed by teens like these from the Campaign's Thinking About the Right Now: What Teens Want Other Teens to Know About Teen Pregnancy: (1) "You're in charge of your life. Don't let anyone pressure you into having sex." (2) "Just because you think 'everyone is doing it,' doesn't meant they are. Some are, some aren't - and some are lying." (3) "Not ready to be someone's father? It's simple: Use protection every time or don't have sex."
• Replicate the Campaign's print PSA of Grant Hill saying "At 15 you should be pushing your game, not a stroller." Use local sports stars and student photographers and graphic designers. Develop a series of related slogans, such as: "At 15 you should be pushing your grades, not a stroller," or "At 15 you should be pushing your dreams, not a stroller."
• Hold a press conference at the beginning of the month to release new data, polls, or survey or focus group research.

Click here for more information on developing a public awareness campaign.
Click here for more information on conducting a teen focus group.

Involve teens in work with the business community.

• Encourage businesses to hire youth for the summer or offer them internship opportunities.
• Encourage businesses to have "Take Your Kid to Work Day."
• Seek business sponsors for a PSA or speech writing contest.
• Ask a business to fund a youth development project in your community - or to give a panel of teens a portion of its corporate giving fund to allocate to programs of the teens' choice.
• Ask local businesses to help promote more communication between youth and adults by giving employees time off to spend at their own child's school or to tutor another child.
• Sponsor a business leaders' roundtable meeting. Ask a well-respected businessperson to sponsor a breakfast or lunch at his or her company for other leaders to learn how they can help prevent teen pregnancy.

Organize sessions for faith leaders to listen to teens.

• Help faith leaders organize informal discussions on teen pregnancy within existing youth groups or as separate events. Have teens talk to faith leaders about their experiences and how faith communities can and already do help them.
• Encourage faith leaders to make themselves available to teens on an ongoing basis.
• Inspire faith leaders by showing them successful teen programs in other parts of the community.
• Schedule several simultaneous meetings in faith communities and invite the press.
• Work with teens to ask the religious community to hold a "prayer breakfast." Ask a prominent religious leader to sponsor a breakfast for his or her colleagues featuring a speaker on teenage pregnancy. Display information about local teen pregnancy prevention efforts, and offer concrete suggestions about how the faith leaders could get involved. For example, in Cortland, New York, a placemat used at a prayer breakfast listed 20 ways to prevent teen pregnancy with a blank space for participants to fill in. Hand out the Campaign's Nine Tips to Help Faith Leaders and Their Communities Address Teen Pregnancy to participants.
• Organize religious leaders to talk about teen pregnancy in their sermons during the same week.
• Establishing monthly meetings for religious leaders to discuss how they can work to prevent teen pregnancy.
• Challenge members of faith communities to create summer jobs for youth, provide community service opportunities, and/or serve as mentors.

Involve teens in proclaiming National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month in your community.

• Work with teens to draft a proclamation announcing May as National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month in your state or community
• Enlist teens to help get the governor, mayor, state legislature, or city council to make the proclamation.
• Hold a press conference with teens to announce the proclamation.

Conduct a local poll of teens.

• Train local teens on how to conduct a poll.
• Craft a press release with data from the poll.

Click here for more information on conducting a teen poll.

Replicate the Campaign's brochures, Talking Back and Right Now, using local teens.

• Organize teens to create their own tips for teens and tips for parents.
• Encourage the teens to design the brochures.
• Distribute the tips for teens at local high schools via health and social studies classes and any supportive teachers.
• Help teens organize a school assembly to release the publications.
• Ask teens to distribute the tips at parent meetings or school board meetings.

Hold an awards event to honor the teens (and others) who have worked to prevent teen pregnancy in your community.

• Acknowledge the hard work of teens and your other partners in a public way. It will encourage them to do more and will attract new people to your effort.