Sex Can Wait: An Abstinence-Based Sexuality Curriculum  (Grades 7-9)

Sex Can Wait is a sexuality/abstinence education program with teacher training manuals and student workbooks available for, Middle School (grades 7&8), and High School (grades 9 & above). Sex Can Wait and the training program from which it originated are five time winners of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Award for Outstanding Work in Community Health Promotion. Evaluations have been presented at a number of professional meetings including the American School Health Association, the American Public Health Association, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. The project was featured at the American Medical Association's First Congress on Adolescent Health and at both National Abstinence Education Evaluation Conferences. More published evaluations exist for Sex Can Wait than any other abstinence education program, including articles in the American Journal of Health Education, the Family Life Educator, the American Journal of Health Behavior, and the Journal of School Health. An additional study in the Journal of School Health found Sex Can Wait was rated #1 of the 22 curricula that were rated.

At the request of Representative Henry Waxman, The United States House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform, Special Investigations Division, produced the report 'Content of Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Education Programs.' The report (often called "The Waxman Report") found that of the 13 abstinence education curricula most commonly used in federally funded abstinence education programs, all but two had substantial problems - providing inaccurate information about reproductive health. Sex Can Wait was one of the two programs that did not have these problems. Here is a link to the report: http://www.apha.org/apha/PDFs/HIV/The_Waxman_Report.pdf

ISBN: ISBN-1-56071-375-5

 
Making A Difference! (Grade 7)

Program Summary

"Making A Difference!" An Abstinence Approach to Prevention of STDs, HIV and Teen Pregnancy is an eight module curriculum that provides young adolescents with the knowledge, confidence, and skills necessary to reduce their risk of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), HIV, and pregnancy by abstaining from sex. The curriculum is designed for middle school youth and is delivered by trained facilitators.

Read the full Implementation Report, which includes:

·         Program Overview

·         Program Components

·         Implementation Requirements and Guidance

·         Implementation Readiness Assessment

​Making Proud Choices! (Grade 8)

Program Summary

Making Proud Choices! (MPC) is an eight-hour, multi-module, sex decisionmaking intervention which was designed to be educational and, at the same time, entertaining and culturally sensitive. It was designed to provide young adolescents with the knowledge, confidence, and skills necessary to reduce their risk of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), HIV, and pregnancy by abstaining from sex or using condoms if they choose to have sex. It is based on cognitive-behavioral theories, findings from focus groups, and the authors' extensive experience working with youth. It is an adaption and extension of the Be Proud! Be Responsible! (BPBR) curriculum (also listed on PPN), integrating teen pregnancy prevention in addition to the HIV/STD prevention components. 

The curriculum involves group discussions, videos, games, brainstorming, experiential exercises, and skill-building activities. Participants in the program work in groups of six to eight teens and are led by a trained facilitator. The curriculum incorporates the BPBR theme, which encourages the participants to be proud of themselves and their community, to behave responsibly for the sake of themselves and their community, and to consider their goals for the future and how unhealthful behavior might impede those goals.

 
Be Proud! Be Responsible! (Grade 9)

Program Summary

Be Proud! Be Responsible! (BPBR, alternatively called Be Proud!) is a five-hour sex-decision-making intervention, made up of six 50-minute modules, typically delivered over the course of one day. The goal of the curriculum is to help adolescents change behaviors that put them at risk of transmitting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). To accomplish this, the curriculum is intended to delay the initiation of sex, reduce the frequency of unprotected sex, and support young people in their making responsible decisions about their own sexual behaviors. 

The intervention covers the ways in which STDs, including HIV/AIDS, are spread. It also covers condom use and the risks posed by unprotected sexual intercourse, multiple partners, vaginal intercourse, and anal intercourse (regardless of gender). The curriculum aims to increase participants' knowledge about the risks of various behaviors and educate participants on how condoms can effectively be used to lower those risks. The BPBR curriculum also targets beliefs about the negative consequences of condom use on sexual enjoyment and works to build decisionmaking and interpersonal negotiation skills to increase the frequency of condom use. The curriculum also attempts to improve self-efficacy regarding condom use—that is, increasing adolescents' belief in the effectiveness of condom use, their ability to use a condom correctly, and their ability to convince a sexual partner to agree to use a condom when he or she originally does not want to use one. 

Each module incorporates a theme that encourages the participants to be proud of themselves and their community, to behave responsibly for the sake of themselves and their community, and to consider their goals for the future and how unhealthful behavior might impede those goals. The curriculum involves group discussions, videos, games, brainstorming, experiential exercises, and skill-building activities. Participants in the program work in groups of six to eight and are led by a trained facilitator. 

Be Proud! Be Responsible! is also an umbrella term for a collection of three curricula: the original BPBR curriculum described above, Making Proud Choices! (an eight-hour, multi-module, safer-sex intervention), and Making a Difference! (an eight-hour, multi-module, abstinence-based intervention). Each curriculum is a distinct, stand-alone unit; they need not be implemented in succession. In this summary, we use the term Be Proud! Be Responsible! to refer to the six-module safer-sex intervention only, and not the other curricula. Please see the PPN summary of Making Proud Choices! for more information on that curriculum.