With some 15,000 children and teens arrested for sex offenses each year, communities clearly have a stake in effective treatment for young offenders. Fortunately, there are programs helping adolescents re-join society successfully and safely. Linda Baker looks at Oregon's Counterpoint center.

Healthy Teen Network's mission is to provide leadership, education, training, information, advocacy, resources and support to professional individuals and organizations in the field of adolescent health, with an emphasis on teen pregnancy, pregnancy prevention and teen parenting.

Amid all the speculation about changes on the Supreme Court, Connect for Kids Editor Susan Phillips takes a look at cases the court will be hearing in the next term that will have an impact on children and youth.

Reviving Ophelia, by Mary Pipher, Ph.D., is subtitled "Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls." It is a good book for parents of growing daughters, the daughters themselves, and anyone who has ever known young girls.

In a notoriously troubled New York City neighborhood, Isis Sapp-Grant has created a supportive haven for girls besieged by drug dealers, sexual predators, family violence and gangs. Holly St. Lifer spoke with Sapp-Grant about her Blossom Program for Girls.

4Parents.gov is new federal Web site aimed at helping parents and teens discuss "issues about healthy choices, abstinence, sex and relationships." After 145 advocacy groups—including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Human Rights Campaign—sent a letter to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt criticizing the Web site for inaccurate information, HHS made several changes to the site's language. The Kaiser Network offers a briefing.

In April 2005, the US Department of Health and Human Services launched 4parents.Gov, a site designed to help parents to talk with their teens about sex and relationships, with an emphasis on abstinence from unhealthy behaviors. More than 100 advocacy and public health organizations have spoken out against the site, saying it contains fear-based and inaccurate information. The Sexuality Education and Information Council of the United States (SEICUS) created a companion site to help parents voice their concerns about 4parents.gov.

Most adolescent girls (60 percent) seeking family planning services say that their parents are aware of their use of services, according to a new study in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medial Association. Still, the study found that laws requiring teens to notify mom or dad are likely to increase risky or unsafe sexual behavior, leading to more teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy reviews data from the National Center for Health Statistics on teen sexual activity. Surveys conducted in 2002 indicate that in teens are having sex less, starting later, and are slightly more likely to use contraception than they were in 1995. "Particularly impressive," according to campaign organizers, were the declines among Hispanic females (from 56.4 percent to 40.4 percent) and non-Hispanic Black males (from 80.6 percent to 63.4 percent).

According to the latest SexSmarts national survey, teens are familiar with many types of pregnancy and STD protection, but tend to be ill-informed or confused about the effectiveness of different methods, particularly in protecting themselves from sexually transmitted diseases..