The Promoting Health Among Teens! Safer Sex intervention provides youth with information about abstinence, safer sex practices, pregnancy prevention, and the prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). It is designed to improve awareness and knowledge about HIV/STIs, increase understanding of how abstinence can prevent pregnancy, STIs and HIV, as well as strengthen behavioral beliefs that support condom use, and build refusal and negotiation skills for practicing abstinence as well as for effective use of condoms.

The intervention consists of 12 modules, and is structured around group discussions, videos, games, brainstorming activities, skill-building and experiential exercises.

Four of the modules are targeted specifically to encouraging abstinence, four are targeted to encouraging condom use, and the other four cover general content related to HIV/STI knowledge. Below is an outline of the curriculum modules:

Module Outline:

• “Getting to Know You”
• “Exploring and Expressing Sexual Feelings”
• “The Consequences of Sex: HIV Infection”
• “A Plan to Reduce the Consequences of Sex”
• “The Consequences of Sex: STD Infection”
• “The Consequences of Sex: Pregnancy”
• “STD/HIV Vulnerability”
• “Risky Sexual Behavior and Content Review”
• “Sexual Responsibility: Abstinence Skills “
• “Sexual Responsibility: Safer Sex-Condom Use Skills
• “Enhancing Sexual Responsibility Skills”
• “Role-Play:Refusal and Negotiation Skills”

CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES

At the completion of the Promoting Health Among Teens! Comprehensive Sex
Intervention curriculum youth will have:

• Increased knowledge about prevention of HIV, STDs, and pregnancy.
• More positive attitudes/beliefs about abstinence.
• More positive attitudes/beliefs about condom use.
• Increased confidence in their ability to negotiate abstinence.
• Increased confidence in their ability to negotiate safer sex and to use condoms correctly.
• Increased negotiation skills.
• Improved condom skills.
• Stronger intentions to abstain from sex, or use condoms if they have sex.
• A lower incidence of HIV/STD risk-associated sexual behavior.
• A stronger sense of pride and responsibility in making a difference in their lives.

STUDENT WORKBOOKS AVAILABLE SOON

Target Audience

Young African-American, Hispanic and White adolescents, ages 13-18 who attend high schools and youth-serving community based programs.

Research Articles

In the research study, the twelve-hour curriculum was implemented in a small group setting with African-American students in grades 6 and 7 on two Saturdays in four different urban public schools. In this random control trial, 662 African American participants between the ages of 10 and 15, mean age 12.2 years, were stratified by gender and age and randomly assigned to receive one of five curricula: an 8-hour abstinence-only intervention, an 8-hour safer-sex-only intervention, an 8- or 12-hour combined abstinence and safer-sex intervention, or an 8-hour health-promotion control group. The adolescents received the curriculum in small groups of six to eight. The facilitators were all African-American and one Puerto Rican adult (mean age 43.1 years); 61.2% had a master’s degree and 38.8% had a bachelor’s degree.

The participants completed questionnaires before, immediately after and 3-, 6-, 12-, 18- and 24-months after the intervention. Of the original 662 participants, 98% attended at least one of the follow-ups; 95.6% attended the three-month, 96.1% attended the six-month, 90.3% attended the 12-month, 87.2% attended the 18-month, and 84.4% attended the 24-month follow-up. The primary outcome for the 12-hour combined abstinence and safer-sex intervention was self-report of ever having sexual intercourse by the 24-month follow-up. Secondary outcomes were other self-reported sexual behaviors in the previous 3 months such as sexual intercourse, multiple partners, unprotected intercourse and consistent condom use. The 12-hour combined abstinence and safer-sex intervention significantly reduced reports of having multiple partners compared with the control group. Participants who received the 12-hour combined abstinence and safer-sex intervention were less likely to report having multiple sex partners in all follow-up sessions than the control group.

The 12-hour combined abstinence and safer-sex intervention marginally significantly reduced the incidence of recent sexual intercourse compared with the health control group.

Behavioral Findings

The participants who received the Promoting Health Among Teens! Comprehensive Sex Intervention reported:

• A reduction in the incidence of multiple sexual partners compared with the health control group.
• A significant reduction in the incidence of recent sexual intercourse at the 24-month follow-up.

Promoting Health Among Teens! Sex Intervention was especially effective with sexually experienced adolescents. For instance, among participants who were sexually experienced at baseline, those in the 12-hour combined abstinence and safer-sex intervention reported less sexual intercourse in the previous 3 months at the 6-, 12-, 18- and 24-month follow-up than the control group. In addition, they reported less unprotected sex at all five follow-up sessions than the control group.

The adolescents who received the Promoting Health Among Teens! Comprehensive Sex Intervention scored higher in condom use knowledge, believed more strongly that condoms can prevent pregnancy, STDs and HIV, believed more strongly that using condoms will not interfere with sexual enjoyment, expressed greater confidence that they could have condoms available when they needed them, and reported greater confidence that they could exercise sufficient impulse control to use condoms and greater self efficacy for using condoms than did those in the control group.

Curriculum Video Samples

Video Samples coming soon.

Package Components

Coming soon!