Free or Low-Cost 
STD Testing in Oak Lawn, IL

To get an idea of local thoughts are in your city on sexual education and the state of sexual education in the city, we can look at at the Oak Park Our Whole Lives program offering sexual education.

Two women are working in your city to offer a local take on a national extracurricular sex education option. These two working moms developed the Oak Park Our Whole Lives program, which offers comprehensive sexuality education.

The Whole Lives programming, developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ, has been available through Unity Temple and First United Church of Oak Park, but Nina Brewer-Davis and Nara Nayar are two mothers who wanted a secular option. One of the moms said their effort began after she looked into signing her children up for the program at one of the churches, but couldn’t do so without enrolling them in religious education there as well.

Nayar thinks other parents feel the way she does about seeking more quality education on sexuality and gender, bodies and health, consent and responsibility, and more. As more children have access to social media and smartphones, the founders wanted their children to be prepared. Three classes are included: one for kindergartners and first-graders, one for fourth- and fifth-graders, and one for seventh- and eighth-graders.

The curriculum at the different levels goes beyond typical sexual education and aims to prepare children for healthy relationships.

At the youngest level, some of the topics covered include the body, families, and babies. Upper elementary children learn about puberty, gender identity, sexual orientation, reproduction, and communication, among other things. And middle schoolers delve into healthy relationships, sexually explicit media, body image, and sexual decision-making, along with other basics like sex, pregnancy, and parenting.

Trained facilitators go through extensive background checks to lead the classes, with a high teacher-to-student ratio. What makes the program unique is not only the early age classes, but how it addresses sexuality. Because it’s an optional program, this program can talk about things that maybe the public schools wouldn’t want to cover.

The classes for fourth- and fifth-graders are full and the founders of the program are convinced demand will continue.

Demographics play a role in the number of STDs in your city, plus Chicago and Cook County. We can look at this role by seeing who is most affected by STDs.

•  Adolescents and young adults are disproportionately affected by STDs compared to older adults
•  Ages 13 to 24 and Blacks are the most commonly diagnosed with chlamydia and gonorrhea
•  Males and females are diagnosed nearly equally with gonorrhea
•  More females at 69.8 percent are diagnosed with chlamydia
•  Blacks, males, males having sex with males, and those over the age of 30 are the largest proportion of primary and secondary syphilis

 Concerning HIV, we can look at people living with HIV, new annual HIV diagnoses, and new annual AIDS diagnoses.

•   Males at 84 percent were diagnosed with new HIV infections
•  Males having sex with males were diagnosed at 75 percent with new HIV infections
•  Ages 20-29 at 39 percent were diagnosed with new HIV infections
•  Males at 79 percent were those living with HIV infection and the highest morbidity
•  Over age 30 at 88 percent were those with HIV and the highest morbidity
•  Males at 82 percent were the new annual AIDs diagnoses   Males at 69 percent who were having sex with males were the new annual AIDS diagnoses
•   Non Hispanic Blacks are affected by HIV more than any other race and represent over 50 percent of the prevalent cases of new infection diagnoses and new AIDs diagnoses.

With STD rates high in Chicago, the higher rates tend to be near your city on the South and West sides, according to a report from the Chicago Department of Public Health. With your city being a southern suburb, this is a concern. The pattern is similar for gonorrhea and chlamydia on the South and West sides, but the rates for syphilis are greatest on the North side.

High poverty and poor access to health care and transportation are factors contributing to higher rates of infections. Fortunately, in your city, statistics do not show high poverty and issues with access to transportation and health care.

Walk in facilities such as STD-Testing in your area where you start the process by talking on the phone with a counsellor. You then get a call or text about what time to come to the lab near you. After you get your tests, you get a text or email about when to expect results. You talk by phone about results and treatments. A chat service is also available. This group covers testing for chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV, hepatitis, and other STDs and conditions.

The Brothers Health Collective offers STD testing including HIV and hepatitis C. English, Haitian Creole, and Spanish are spoken there. Walk ins are welcome. Populations serviced include adolescents, youth, teens, African Americans/Blacks, at risk persons, gay men, the general public, Hispanics/Latinos, LGBT, low income persons, men, men who have sex with men, persons practicing high risk behaviors, and women. This group is a peer led organization formed in 2006 by volunteers to fill gaps in service in prevention and care for testing and counseling for Black men and intimate partners in Cook County and surrounding areas and counties.

Whether you go to the Orland Park /Planned Parenthood, a counsellor or nurse at an area high school, an online service, or a clinic or hospital such as Palos Community Hospital, you can find in your area information about STDs, testing, and treatment. You could also learn about how to get tested if you go to a counsellor at the Mokena/Tinley Park campus of The Rasmussen College Centro de Aprendizaje (Learning Center), a community education hub with a bilingual staff.