HomeMy WebLinkAboutWomens Commission - Minutes - 02/22/1999Commission on the Status of Women
Minutes
February 22, 1999
Present: Connie Uliasz (chair 225-1681), Ruth Weatherford, Danielle Johnson, Peggy
Loonan, Susan Crowe, Lena Sunthankar, JoAnn Ginal, Annmarie Evans, Bobbie
Gonzales, Sylvia Schmid, Rita Anastasio
Liaisons: Laurie Fonken-Joseph, City Staff (221-6871)
Excused Absences: Diane Gregg
I. Call to order: 6:10
II.. Minutes: Approved
III. Review Agenda
Guest Speaker: Ruth Lytle-Barnaby, Poudre Valley Health Systems
Teen Pregnancy in Larimer County. Healthy Communities Coalition is a group
working on teen pregnancy issues for the past 8 months. They are looking at what is in
the best interest of the young women. Ruth showed statistics on deliveries at PVH over
the past few years and zip codes of the girls delivering which show that teen pregnancy is
happening all over the county and not only in lower income areas. PRl is teaching
several courses which do a little bit of education on pregnancy, yet there is need for more.
For parents it is important to know what your kids are watching on TV and listening to on
the radio, reading and seeing on the computer, as research indicates that the attitude of
young people is affected by the media. Talk to kids about what is offensive to you.
Know who your kids are hanging out with. Establish common rules and expectations
with your kids friends parents. Hold fast to your convictions and honor your beliefs
because kids will pick up on it if you waiver. Welcome your children's friends into your
home and talk openly with them. Establish rules and curfews. Most girls get pregnant
between 3:00-5:00 pm. Engage your kids in useful activities after school. Supervising
and monitoring your kids does not make you a nag, it makes you a parent. Discourage
early frequent one on one dating, encourage group activities. Let your kids know early
what your dating expectations will be. Start to set the norms for them. Talk to your kids
early about sex. Answer their questions. Be open honest, and respectful. Be specific.
Ask them what they think. As a parent tell them what you learned. Be clear about your
own sexual values and attitudes. Talk about how sexual activity equates to parenthood.
Let them know who is responsible for setting sexual limits in a relationship. Consider
what you think about encouraging teenagers to abstain from sex, and what you think
about teenagers using contraception. In research about teens that get pregnant the rate of
teen pregnancy sky rockets when a young girl is dating a boy who is several years older.
Don't let your son go out with a younger girl either. Set a limit of 2-3 years difference.
Help teens to look at options for the future, as they tend to delay sex when future looks
bright. Help them set goals and talk with them about what it takes to make future plans
come true. Conversations on goals must be ongoing. Value education highly, set high
expectations for school performance. Go over the school work with your kids. Relate it
to their goals. Get to know teachers, coaches and principal. Limit amount of time your
child works at apart time job. Keep kids busy and involved in groups and experiences.
In Fort Collins most girls are keeping their children, even the younger girls.
Currently there are no specific City programs for after school. The hospital does "healthy
kids club" funded by PVH where girls get involved in activities and increase fitness.
Doing this at Lincoln and City provides bus service free for kids under 16. Need to look
at focus on city transportation to get kids to activities. Funding and transportation are
both issues. Need to come up with programs which are not all organized sport activities.
PRI programs after school, a few musical and drama things depending on the schools.
Held a community forum on the issues around Teen Pregnancy. Heard from the youth in
the community and came up with some indicators and actions. The group, Healthy
Communities Coalition, includes a cross section of people from the community. Need to
look at use of the schools for programming. What can the Commission on the Status of
Women do to help out? Do we want to do programs, policy, fundraising? Information
we were given this evening is not generally known throughout Fort Collins. An idea
would be to share this information with larger groups. Possibly getting involved in the
PTO's currently in place. Suggest one person to be a liaison to the Healthy Communities
Group and decide based on the direction they are moving forward how the Commission
can best use their resources. Also to let this group use the Study numbers and statistics.
Ruth will send Laurie the information on the coalition. Lena, Annmarie and Susan are all
interested in becoming liaisons to this group. Will discuss this issue at the next meeting.
IV. Announcements:
A. Mail reviewed.
V. Business Items:
A. Report on Progress of Ten Year Update Study- Sections were mailed out.
Formatting and printing update by Danielle and Connie. Connie has been
working on the formatting. Most of the sections are completed. Libby is still
working on appendix on Welfare. Formatting is coming along fairly well.
Income section is most difficult, due to graphs and charts. We need to see if
we will be able to do it in color or in black and white. Color looks better with
the graphs. Is not going to be as long as we originally thought, under 200
pages. Considered the title of the study. Would like to put it online on Fort
Net once it is completed. Do copy of each graph as transparency. Will order
some supplies from Office Depot to continue to print the study. Discussed
front page or cover possibilities. Agreed to do some type of photo or drawing
with many types of women. Rita will check with a woman she knows who is
an illustrator. Different faces in different colors of women of all ages. Report
on the estimates for printing for 300 copies. Two colors with GBC binding
$7,000.00 to one color $2,844.00. Frontier Printing is lowest at $1,200.00
three hole punched and no color. Will need to get final bids once we get the
final product ready to go. Peggy and Annmarie will look at a vocational
school that may have the ability to do the printing for us JoAnn is giving a talk
to Project Self Sufficiency on March 16, 1999 12:00 and would like other
commission members to be there.
B. Women's History Month Committee -Essays will be sent in by February 26.
Ruth will pick them up. JoAnn, Lena, Ruth and Susan will read. Ask winners
if they are willing to say a few words about their essays at the council
ceremony. Fort Collins Historical Society will let us know the honoree for
Women's History month. We will need some kind of presentation to
acknowledge all of the winners. Connie will make a certificate. Please plan to
be in attendance March 9`h at 5:30 at City Council Chambers. Laurie will get
checks for winners. Presentation of the essay awards will be done by JoAnn
and Lena.
C. Report from Human Relations Commission meeting- No one was able to
attend.
D. Other- Peggy announced that Laurie and Connie and Annmarie and Peggy met
to discuss commission issues. Looked at a different structure of functioning
for the commission. Suggested creating an executive committee of the chair,
co-chair, secretary which will meet before the monthly meeting to set the
agenda, go through he mail, deal with upcoming projects etc. Invited two
other members to join if they want to. Other members of the commission
supported the idea.
E. Peggy put out the idea to set up standing committees which will work
throughout the year. In addition to the Women's History Essay Contest, the
Marcile N. Wood Award Committee, and the Marketing Committee. Set
these up at the end of every year. Proposed the idea of establishing another
committee on electoral and legislative committee, connect up with Women's
Lobby and the League of Women Voters. Executive Committee discussed
talking with Chris Kneeland about her ideas on this. Trying to educate and
encourage more women to get involved in the electoral and legislative
process. Bobbie shared this might be duplicating some of what the League of
Women Voters is already doing. Bobbie is willing to summarize for us these
issues on a monthly basis.
F. Discussion on the Study.
• Do we pick several areas to focus on now, or do we wait until we get it out to
the community and get feedback and input and then create the programs?
• Is there a way to start working on a piece of this before we get all the input
from the community?
• At this point it is important for more Commission members to join in and get
this information out to more organizations. We can then gather the
information we will need to guide our focus.
• Commission members need to solicit groups to present the study information
to.
• Could report be on one track while there is program work set up on another
track as well?
• There are so many recommendations in the report it could be our greatest
resource, some do not want to dilute our energy by going in other directions
outside the report. The commission was established out of the first report.
• What has happened in between the 10 years between the surveys being done?
• How can we be proactive before the report is finished?
• Some of the recommendations in the study are for the Commission, some for
the City, some for the schools some for the community. We will need to
decide in what ways we will want to work with these other groups.
• The Fundamental Question: What is the function of this commission?
• We have spent a lot of time on this study and that the fear is that the
recommendations will be abandoned.
• There has been a great deal of frustration of new members that have not been
as involved in the report because we seem stalled until this report is done.
• All of the commission members need to get really familiar with the report and
go out and do presentations.
• Next meeting will be Diane Lathrop, Doreen Kemp, Audrey Faulkner to give
historical view of the survey and to answers questions.
G. Multicultural Conference Saturday March 20, 1999 and do we have anything
we can display and someone to be there. Susan will work on this.
VI. Adjourn 8:30