The Youth Safety Initiative was started in 1999 when a group of community leaders wanted to make sure that we were addressing the safety of youth in our community. After several years this group decided to turn the project over to a group of high school students to determine what issues to focus on. This group of teens, who call themselves Straight Forward, chose early and unprotected sex as the safety issue most pressing and least addressed for the youth in our community.

Every spring the Straight Forward group puts together a media campaign and blitz. The emphasis of the campaign is to get parents of middle-school-age youth to begin "the talk" with their teens at an early age. The media blitz promotes our Web site donttellmyparents.org. This Web site is filled with links for parents and teens to get more information on the sexual issues that are facing youth today.

The other key component of the Youth Safety Initiative is the Tell It To Me Straight community dinners. Parents of middle-school-age youth and others in the community are invited to a free dinner. With the guidance of their adult leader, the youth present a slideshow and pertinent video excerpts, role-play, and conduct honest dialogue between teens and parents. This helps to enable the parents to then go home and begin or continue meaningful communication with their own teens about sex.

The Straight Forward group is guided by an adult facilitator; Volunteers of America, Dakotas staff; and an advisory committee.