Heritage of Kentucky Quick Facts

• Heritage of Kentucky (HoK) is a secular, research-based, non-profit organization that provides instruction to public and private schools and other organizations throughout Kentucky in the areas of character and life-skills development, abstinence education and future family formation and planning.
• HoK is not connected to the Heritage Foundation or any other group with Heritage in its name, except Heritage Community Services of SC (Heritage).
• "Abstinence-only" is not a term HoK uses for its program. The term was coined in the mid-90s by Planned Parenthood and its affiliates - the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) and Advocates for Youth, in an attempt to portray abstinence education as narrow minded and lacking in important information.
• "Abstinence-outside-of-marriage" is the term used by HoK and Heritage throughout its program of abstinence education and family formation.
• KY law (SB 126 and HB 440) states that abstinence should be taught and unless a parent opts their child out they will receive Abstinence until Marriage sex education.
• HoK cannot and does not seek to 'remove' comprehensive sex education from the schools (that is a school decision). HoK's emphasis on abstinence actually fulfills the intent of the law by providing, at no cost, a much-needed strong abstinence-outside-of-marriage message in line with state legislation and the federal legislation from which we receive the major portion of our funding.
• The Heritage abstinence education program is research based and has been shown to decrease sexual activity better than most abstinence programs in the nation. Heritage’s diverse abstinence educators believe the message of abstinence-outside-of-marriage, are thoroughly trained, and can teach the message with conviction and credibility.
• Research from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy shows that teen pregnancy and abortion have declined because of both abstinence and comprehensive education. A research evaluation of Heritage’s abstinence education program has shown that it is producing remarkable, positive results for students throughout South Carolina and the results over the first four years in KY show very similar findings. Heritage also hopes that all Sex Educators in KY do their jobs very well because many young lives and their futures depend on it.