Healthy Start isn’t just a place to go to for sports physicals, counseling, or stomach aches. It is a licensed medical facility available to everyone on the school campus. They offer other forms of help that may not be well known among students, like testing for sexually transmitted diseases, sexual education, and family planning services.
Judy Rauzi is head of the Healthy Start program. Her goal is to have more students come into the facility and use the STD testing and family planning services that are being offered to their advantage.
At Healthy Start, students can get tested for different types of STDs and get help with family planning services, which are completely confidential. “I think it’s great,” senior Zach Artozqui said. “We need the guidance and knowledge that she (Judy Rauzi) is providing us. Some people take (the services offered) for granted when (they) shouldn’t be.” All services offered at Healthy Start require parental consent before any measures can be put into action.
These services are open to everyone on campus. Healthy Start also serves as a place to get information about sexual education, the different types of tests used to identify STDs, and different kinds of protection. A female senior said, “People should be aware of these services, especially if they have nowhere else to go to get help or information.”
According to the Center for Disease Control, almost three out of four teenagers have already had sexual intercourse by the time they reach 20. Four out of five of those teenagers used different forms of contraceptives. Many of those teenagers turn to their schools for help on getting protection and tested for STDs.
Healthy Start recently took a step to further inform students on campus about the availability of their services by putting up flyers in the girls’ bathrooms. Rauzi said, “I want more girls who are sexually active to come forward and ask questions, get tested, and get protection.” She isn’t encouraging students to have sex but to be responsible and choose to get protection and get tested where it is available to them.
Despite the fact that these services are offered at Healthy Start, students don’t seem to be so aware of them. Sophomore Anastasia Chhat was one of the many students who did not know that students could receive these types of services until she saw the flyers posted up on the girls’ bathroom wall. “I think it’s a good thing for the school to offer things like that so students could get support right at school,” she said.
These services are not only being offered to female students but to male students as well. “Kids need to know what’s out there, they need to know that they can come to the Health Center to see what’s available and get the information they need,” Rauzi said.
