Office of Population Affairs Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs Adolescent Family Life (AFL) Prevention Demonstration Projects 2007-2008 Pima Prevention Partnership- NEW Tucson, Arizona Pima Prevention Partnership (PPP) is a non-profit organization which operates a behavioral health facility for adolescents, and provides health risk prevention and early intervention services for adolescents, families, and adults. The AFL prevention demonstration project, entitled, “Families Trust” is an expansion of its existing in-school ten hour abstinence component that includes the following additional components: parental, familial and mental health/counseling. For the in-school component, sixth grade students receive the “Choosing the Best” curriculum once a week for ten weeks by an adult facilitator. All parents are offered a 2-hour parent workshop at different times at the intervention schools to make it more convenient for parents to attend. A subset of parents participates in an intensive family strengthening workshop series. The “Strengthening Families for Parents and Teens” curriculum will be adapted from one of SAMHSA’s best practice model program to include information and activities related to sexual decision-making. There are 8 three-hour sessions with each session consisting of a dinner, separate parent and teen classes and a family session. A master’s trained counselor is involved in the parent and family components as well as provides both individual and group behavioral health support to participants. The counselor provides an assessment and eight therapeutic sessions. The evaluation will test the impact of parental involvement in abstinence education in school settings. The evaluation is a quasi-experimental design with a matched comparison group. Parents are randomly assigned into intervention and control groups. There are pre and annual post testing with a two year follow-up. Grant: $475,000 Contact: Ken Walker; 520-791-2711 Healthy Connections- NEW Mena, Arkansas Healthy Connections is conducting a school based educational and motivational abstinence project called Voices for Healthy Choices. The project serves 7th grade students and families in and around Mena, Arkansas, in the heart of the Ouachita Mountains of western Arkansas. The project delivers abstinence education to students, asset building activities, community service opportunities, and recreational activities. The project evaluation uses random assignment and will examine the outcomes of students who are in the program compared with students who are not in the program. Grant: $428,941 Contact: Doreen Brown; 479-243-0279 Kings County Action Organization Hanford, California Kings County Action Organization is a private, non-profit organization that was established in 1967 designed to provide anti-poverty activities for Kings County. The agency reaches out to low-income people to address multiple needs and administers a full range of coordinated programs designed to have a measurable impact on poverty. "Making Smart Choices From the Start" (SMART) targets Kings County, California. This county is rural, agricultural and located in the San Joaquin Valley. The project implements three separate bi-weekly educational sessions (18-20 hours) after-school with 10-12 year olds and 13-15 year olds. The program utilizes an age appropriate curriculum that teaches premarital abstinence from sex and abstinence from other risky health behaviors. Lessons are reinforced through a variety of strategies, including social activities following lessons that give teens sufficient time to digest the information and form bonds with the group and outside presenters. Teens have Holiday parties and conduct fund raisers in order to go on field trips. Support services range from individual counseling, helping with housing costs (heating bills, insulation), Head Start for younger siblings, and crisis support services for individual teens and their families, as well as a 9 hour parent training. The support services are a part of the grant match. Grant: $237,567 Contact: Joey Cox; 559-583-0315 Catholic Healthcare West dba Northridge Hospital Medical Center- NEW Northridge, California Northridge Hospital Medical Center, a non-profit community hospital, is implementing the AFL prevention demonstration grant, “Promoting Abstinence for Teen Health through Artes Teatro”(PATH-AT). Based on findings from a previous Adolescent Family Life grant, PATH-AT is an abstinence only in-school and after-school intervention using peer educators and the arts to engage middle school students and their families in learning and understanding the benefits to abstaining from premarital sex. Latino middle school students age 10-13 receive 15 hours of WAIT (Why Am I Tempted?) Training sessions are implemented by trained high school peer educators in-school. Participants also view an abstinence-themed play. Theatre field trips for 7th and 8th grade students introduce them to the larger world and their communities. Parents are engaged in a Let’s Talk parent workshop series. A true experiment design is used to conduct the summative evaluation of PATH-AT and will track treatment and control participants for at least two years. Grant: $475,000 Contact: Bonnie Bailer; 818-785-3143 Vista Community Clinic- NEW Vista, California Junior REACH (Recreation, Employment readiness, Academic achievement, Communication skills, and Healthy lifestyles) is a project operated by Vista Community Clinic in two high-risk areas in North San Diego County. Junior REACH serves youth (boys and girls) 9-12 years old through a youth development-based, long-term after school program. The project serves about 120 youth per year and the target population is primarily Latino. Youth have the opportunity to receive up to 200 hours of service annually. The groups meet at 2 different community centers from 2pm-6pm M-Th for the entire school year. Services include: abstinence education, service learning projects, health and fitness activities, arts and cultural programming, gender specific support groups, and parent workshops. The abstinence programming lasts for 8 weeks (about 30 hours) for each youth on a rotating schedule. The project also provides service learning opportunities, health and fitness activities, arts and cultural programming, and gender specific support groups. Youth participate for the entire school year alternating through each module. The project also provides 8 weeks/16 hours of programming to 50 parents per year using the “Let’s Talk” curriculum (a combination of “Can We Talk?” and “Guiding Good Choices”). These workshops directly mirror what the youth are learning in their program. The evaluation uses a longitudinal quasi-experimental design with a matched comparison. The intervention is provided for one year for each cohort and then the project tracks those youth for two years. The project collects data at baseline prior to the abstinence education, post intervention (abstinence component- after 8 weeks), at 12 month follow up, and 24 month follow up. This evaluation intensive design will look at areas of decision-making and refusal skills, intention to remain abstinent, and self-efficacy. Grant: $475,000 Contact: Danel Vickerman: 760-407-1220 ext. 163 Maria Yanez: 760-407-1220 ext. 140 Communities Choosing Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program (C-CAPP) San Francisco, California C-CAPP is a private, non-profit community agency that specializes in abstinence education in the City and County of San Francisco. This AFL abstinence education program is being conducted in 17 high schools and 13 middle schools in the City and County of San Francisco for a total 30 public schools. The program, conducted by young specially trained health educators, reaches an estimated 5,000 students in grades 7 though 12 every year. The ethnic make-up of this project includes Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanics, Chinese, Filipinos and Southeast Asians. The program includes several sessions for parents as well as works with Beacon Centers in after-school programs in and around San Francisco. The intervention, largely a curriculum-driven mixed with a Developmental Assets approach, expands a previously-funded AFL 9 one-hour dosage sessions to twelve sessions. Interventions conducted at the Beacon Centers for parents represent a further expansion of the previous program. In addition, special counseling and guidance sessions after-school have been added and are carried out at the agency's own facilities. The program has tremendous support from the public school system and the public school teachers. The program expects to find that these activities will increase knowledge about abstinence and increase support for participants. Grant: $250,000 Contact: Bob Baillie; 415-334-6810 Colorado State University Cooperative Extension- NEW Cortez, Colorado Colorado State University Cooperative Extension Youth Development program is implementing the Dare to Be You Care to Wait program. This project targets 12 to 14 year old youth and their families through 20 hours of family based workshops over 11 weeks. Over the course of 5 years, the project will reach 1140 family members. The project also targets community members who work with youth through 15 hours of community training and will reach an additional 600 youth. In addition to the basic family model, the project also incorporates an emphasis on strong abstinence messaging and healthy relationships and marriages. The project includes follow up booster sessions and a mental health component to address a multitude of family needs. This project works with families in one urban area of Colorado and one rural area. The evaluation randomly assigns families into one of two groups: treatment or control. The evaluation is examining whether the adolescents and parents who receive the treatment fare better on a number of outcomes than those in the control group. Families are followed up at 6, 12, and 24 months. Grant: $410,843 Contact: Jan Miller-Heyl; 970-565-3606 Friends First- NEW Littleton, Colorado The Friends First program provides two unique models of abstinence education programming. The STARS mentoring program is a cascading mentoring model using high school students as mentors/ peer educators who deliver after school abstinence education mentoring/ education to middle school (6th-8th grade) students. The Quinceanera program delivers culturally relevant abstinence education programming to 12-15 year old adolescents and their families. The program evaluation will randomly assign participants/ families in both programs into either the intervention group or a control group that does not receive the intervention. The evaluation will follow participants for up to 2 years post intervention. Grant: $414,800 Contact: Gina Harris; 720-981-9193 National Organization of Concerned Black Men Washington, District of Columbia The National Organization of Concerned Black Men, Inc. (CBM) is a non-profit organization that seeks to improve the condition of children and their families by helping them with life's many challenges. The grantee uses a comprehensive approach to teaching and evaluating the abstinence until marriage message with youth in the D.C. area in 5 middle school and community sites. Youth educational sessions on the consequences of premarital sex; self-esteem, peer pressure resistance and other life skills training; mentoring; individual and family counseling; parenting education; and referrals to recreational and family service agencies are utilized as part of this program. A community outreach component is also included and seeks to improve each school's norms on abstinence. This project utilizes a quasi-experimental design with annual follow-up for two years. Grant: $243,538 Contact: Cheryl Johnson; 202-783-0101 Switchboard of Miami, Inc. Miami, Florida Switchboard of Miami's Project REAL (Reinforcing Education through Abstinence and Leadership) targets 447 seventh graders and 428 eighth graders in Alllapattah Middle School in Miami-Dade County. The project tests the effect of implementing a potentially powerful abstinence intervention, "Baby Think it Over," to a standard, proven effective abstinence education curriculum, "Choosing the Best." In addition, Project REAL tests the effect of the self directed parent/family involvement component associated with "Baby Think it Over" with parent(s) and family members of participants through workshops and special parent/family initiatives. Project REAL also recruits mentors (youth and adults) to be paired with high-risk teens and adults to help prevent future premarital pregnancies and provide other pro-social support. Grant: $300,000 Contact: Janet Mapp; 305-358-1640 ext. 136 Emory University Atlanta, Georgia The underlying premise of this project is that the gains made for youth through abstinence education (or any type of prevention education) are undermined by the massive influence of the media (television, music, video games, etc.). This project is therefore designed to provide the missing link in abstinence education for youth and their parents. The overarching goal of this project is to reduce school-age pregnancies in Georgia by adding an innovative media intervention to current abstinence efforts. Through the Media Madness Program, the expected result will be an increased proportion of youth intending to delay sexual involvement based on pre- and post-testing. Also, parent's communication skills are enhanced and strengthened when talking with their children about media messages. Grant: $299,520 Contact: Marion Howard; 404-712-8730 Augusta Partnership for Children, Inc.- NEW Augusta, Georgia Augusta Partnership for Children (APC) has expanded an existing in-school abstinence component by offering after-school activities to students, workshops for parents and families, and case management services to families. Designated teachers implement the Choosing the Best curricula in grades 7-11 during health, family consumer science and technology classes. In addition, students participate in a peer mentoring/leadership component. Eleventh grade students receive 8 hours of initial training and ongoing monthly training in order to properly mentor seventh grade students and speak on the topic throughout the community. Students also participate in after-school activities (creative arts, music and drama). Parents participate in 2-hour workshops using a variety of curricula to improve parent-child communication. Also, a family night series is conducted to introduce abstinence information in a fun and game-filled environment. A parent speaker bureau is being implemented so that parents will be spokespeople promoting abstinence throughout the county. Case management services are offered to participants and their families. A social marketing campaign is also being conducted in target areas promoting the abstinence message. This evaluation utilizes a longitudinal, randomized design with pre-survey, immediate post-survey, and 12 and 24 month post follow-ups. Qualitative methods are also be used to make adjustments to programmatic components. Grant: $475,000 Contact: Robetta McKenzie; 706-721-1040 Demoiselle 2 Femme - NEW Chicago, Illinois Demoiselle 2 Femme is a 501(c)(3) not for profit agency serving Chicago and the south suburban Chicago community of Thornton Township. The grantee agency was founded in 1994 as a community-based program committed to serving adolescent females in their transition toward womanhood. The services are holistic in approach, and encourage young ladies to develop academic, social and career goals that will challenge them to excel beyond their current limitations. The AFL project targets African American girls ages 14-18 and their parents offering comprehensive abstinence education youth development strategies through weekly workshops. Activities include mentoring, personal development, community service, and academic assistance. The evaluation plan has 4 over-arching goals: to increase adolescents’ understanding of the positive health and emotional benefits of abstaining from premarital sexual activity; to reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies among adolescents; to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases among adolescents; and to increase the involvement of parents in the lives of their children. The evaluation effort is quasi-experimental in design with 3 comparison groups and includes pre- and post-test surveys with a 12 month follow-up survey administered to youth and parents. Grant: $475,000 Contact: Tori Tyler; 312-458-0644 Lake County Health Department- NEW Waukegan, Illinois The Lake County Health Department is a certified county health department, Federally Qualified Health Center and is JCAHCO accredited, serving North Chicago, IL, an urban community located 50 miles north of Chicago. Project FOCUS serves predominantly African American and Latino 6th, 7th and 8th grade students and their parents. The intention of Project FOCUS is to demonstrate that kids are more likely to abstain from early onset of sexual behavior and other risky behaviors as a result of the youth development intervention offered by the grantee. The services include teen abstinence education, parent sexual health education workshops and support, parent-child connectedness training, cultural enrichment field trips and positive future orientation. Interwoven into all levels is the exploration of the role that cultural heritage and values play in making personal choices. The evaluation uses a randomized, experimental design which will contribute to the field of knowledge about promoting adolescent sexual abstinence and offer information useful for program development and replication. Grant: $475,000 Contact: Susan Bekenstein; 847-377-8188 People's Regional Opportunity Program Portland, Maine PROP has program offices in four urban low-income neighborhoods where residents originate from several African, Asian, Middle-eastern and European nations. This project engages both youth and adults in the demonstration program by utilizing the asset building model and engaging neighborhood adults as active resources/mentors for youth. Abstinence education is implemented in the framework of community involvement and mentoring activities. Older youth are trained to provide mentoring services to the younger youth (peer leader model) and the community is actively engaged in planning and implementing program activities. The evaluation is expected to show increases in youth assets and increases in knowledge about issues related to abstinence. Grant: $165,000 Contact: Favor Ellis; (207) 874-1140 ext. 363 HOPE Worldwide- NEW Ellicott City, Maryland HOPE Worldwide Baltimore is implementing the Healthy Communities Baltimore prevention demonstration project with 9-18 year old youth and their parents enrolled in 16 YMCA programs located in Title 1 schools in Baltimore, Maryland. The project delivers a peer-to-peer education program focusing on healthy lifestyles, abstinence, conflict resolution, resistance skills, and parent-child communication. Participants are randomly assigned to receive the intervention. Grant: $474,955 Contact: Aloysius Essien; 484-744-9306 Boston Medical Center Corporation Boston, Massachusetts Families United for Health (FUTH) is a collaboration between Boston Medical Center (BMC), Dorchester-based Youth and Family Enrichment Services, Wilson Middle School and several local churches. Utilizing a comprehensive abstinence education curriculum and activities, the grantee offers a year long in-school and after-school program to primarily Haitian youth as well as a comprehensive summer program. In addition, parent/child workshops are held at local churches. The goal of this project is to promote the message that abstinence from sexual activity until marriage and avoiding other health risk behaviors is the path to a healthy and happy lifestyle. The evaluation expects to find that program participants will increase knowledge about sexually transmitted infections, the benefits of abstinence and increased parental involvement. Grant: $246,735 Contact: Nicole Prudent; 617-414-3808 Ingham County Health Department Lansing, Michigan The Adolescent Health Services of the Ingham County Health Department is implementing and evaluating an AFL abstinence education project. A middle school abstinence curriculum and Search Institute's 40 Developmental Assets are the foundation for a Peer Education intervention. Activities take place in two brand new in-school programs, three after-school programs, a peer education series and four community-based programs. All parents of program participants are invited to participate in a parent workshop designed to facilitate parental involvement and communication between parent and child on a variety of topics. Grant: $276,826 Contact: Kathy Way; 517-702-3525 Youth Opportunities Unlimited Marks, Mississippi This AFL prevention project, M.A.D.A.M.E. (Making Alternative Decisions and Modeling Excellence) Butterfly is an innovative AFL prevention project that targets "high risk" pre-adolescent and adolescent girls living in rural Mississippi communities. The population served is females between the ages of 8 and 18 attending schools in Quitman, North Panola and West Tallahatchie counties. The project includes educational instruction through the use of three curricula and other youth development interventions including a leadership corps, peer mentoring and video production. This project utilizes a quasi-experimental matched comparison design. Grant: $260,633 Contact: Shirley French; 662-326-4614 Southern Nevada AHEC Las Vegas, Nevada AHEC is a private, non -profit organization and is part of the national AHEC program. Incorporated in 1989, Southern Nevada AHEC's mission is to improve quality healthcare through education and outreach and to strive toward a culturally diverse workforce in four southern counties in the State. The AFL project focuses solely on parents to train them to be the best educators of their children in the areas of sex education, health, communication, decision making, goal setting, social support, Developmental Assets, risk avoidance, etc. An interactive CD-Rom with parenting situations and engaging activities is utilized as well as excellent outreach and group facilitators. This AFL project places a very strong emphasis on families and family involvement. It estimates that it will involve nearly 1,000 parents per year. The entire approach is testing what impact parent education will have on reducing sexual involvement, pregnancy and diseases among adolescents. Grant: $200,000 Contact: Mary Rosenthal; 702-212-6382 Friends and Families United, Inc. Newark, New Jersey Friends and Families United is implementing abstinence programming using the Best Friends/ Best Men model with 10-14 year old students in Newark, NJ. Activities include bi-weekly health lessons, weekly physical fitness classes, weekly sessions with an adult mentor, cultural activities, exposure to positive role models, referrals to needed health services, community service projects, a parental advisory council, and a year-end recognition ceremony. Participants receive at least 110 hours of guidance and activity each year. The grantee assesses the effects of program activities on risky behaviors such as drinking and smoking, attitudes towards sexual activity, abstinence, and marriage, the creation of a more positive environment for positive health behaviors, and refusal skills, and the adolescent pregnancy rate for program participants. Data from program participants is compared to data from non-participants at matched schools. Grant: $293,156 Contact: RoseMarie Peterkin; 973-733-7907 Our Lady of Lourdes Memorial Hospital Binghamton, New York Project HOPE works with a forum of parent activists who are developing a prevention model for discussing sexual matters with their children. The grantee provides the structure, support and resources necessary to help parents accomplish their mission. The parent forum has ownership of the creative process and develops the methods to disseminate the expertise, experience and strategies they discover that work to enhance family communication and education around sexuality with their children. Parents perpetuate the process of providing support and education by sharing what they have learned with other parents. Grant: $300,000 Contact: Bette Gifford; 607-584-4500 Adolescent and Family Comprehensive Services, Inc- NEW Bronx, New York Adolescent and Family Comprehensive Services (AFCS) is a non-profit organization that provides supportive services to youth and families since 1979. AFCS is implementing the Family Life Abstinence Project to target 1,000 fifth through tenth grade students and 200 of their parents from ten Bronx schools. The Family Life Abstinence Project is comprised of an in-school, after-school and parental components. The in-school component implements “Sex Can Wait” and “Managing Pressures Before Marriage” curricula. The after-school component consists of structured programs and cultural events conducted for three hours on weekdays, engaging participants in youth development activities, asset building, nutritional counseling and prevention services. The parental component implements the “Common Sense Parenting and Active Parenting of Teens” curriculum weekly. The evaluation design consists of randomized treatment and control groups among six schools with measures being conducted at baseline, 6 months, 12 months and 24 months for both treatment and control groups. Grant: $475,000 Contact: Jacqueline Edwards; 718-299-2327 Program Reach- NEW Bronx, New York Program REACH is a non-profit organization which provides abstinence education instruction throughout the community. The prevention demonstration project, Healthy Respect Character Education Program (HRCEP) aims to teach healthy relationships, self-respect and academic goals. Abstinence education instruction is provided to 4th-6th grade students in the Yonkers Public Schools. In addition, students participate in youth development after school clubs. Parents of the participants attend 7 workshops and remain engaged through newsletters and parent/child homework assignments annually. A quasi-experimental evaluation design with matched comparison schools will be used. Grant: $475,000 Contact: Nanci Coppola; 718-409-0900 Catholic Charities of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, NY- NEW Syracuse, New York The Choices Enhanced Program works to reduce teen pregnancy among low income, racially and culturally diverse youth in Syracuse through community-based Parent-Child Connectedness Training, community-based Abstinence Education Workshops for youth ages 9-15, and Youth Development Activities designed to build and reinforce skills and assets that youth need to build healthy, successful lives. The overall goal is to increase parents’ involvement in the lives of their children, to increase parent-child connectedness and to improve parents’ ability to monitor the behavior of their teenage children. The youth participants will demonstrate an understanding and favorable attitude of the benefits of abstinence as well as intentions to make healthy lifestyle choices including choosing abstinence until marriage. The evaluation component of this project is designed using a 2x2 (2-group, 2-condition) pre-test and post-test randomized field experiment. Grant: $474,998 Contact: Felicia Castricone; 315-474-7428 The Public Health Authority of Cabarrus County - NEW Kannapolis, North Carolina The Public Health Authority of Cabarrus County provides public health services to families in Cabarrus County. The AFL prevention demonstration project, Taking Responsible Actions in Life (TRAIL) is built on lessons learned from its preceding AFL abstinence demonstration grant. TRAIL participants will engage in abstinence education and enrichment activities over a three-year period. The project focuses on impacting school-wide social norms towards positive decision-making. Using a saturation model, students, parents and teachers of the intervention site receive the social norms marketing campaign. Students in grades 7th – 9th are targeted to receive abstinence education instruction and youth development activities. Their parents participate in parent-child homework activities, newsletters and family events at the school. The evaluation design is quasi-experimental using a matched comparison school. The evaluation plan employs quantitative analytic procedures and qualitative methods with appropriate incentives and follow-up tracking. Grant: $475,000 Contact: Barbara Sheppard; 704-920-1249 Catholic Social Services of the Miami Valley- NEW Dayton, Ohio The model offered by Catholic Social Services of the Miami Valley (CSSMV) is a comprehensive youth development prevention project for youth involved with the child protection agency. In this intervention, case managers meet one-on-one with participants to explore and evaluate the youth’s hopes, to highlight the youth’s strengths and potential, and integrate these with the needs and difficulty of the youth. Through this process, a Youth Development Plan is developed which will serve as a road map to success for the youth participants. The grantee believes that the combination of the relationship-based model, intensive case management and other supportive activities will be the keys to preventing teen pregnancy, STIs and destructive family relationships. Project services have 2 distinct phases of implementation over 24 months of individually serving youth. The first year of service is designed to build and cement the relationship between the youth and the service provider (youth development specialist). After the youth development plan has been created, the services are intensive, comprehensive, and mostly home-based. Parents are involved in all aspects of the program, beginning with the initial assessment of service needs with the youth development specialist. Service needs identified are parent-specific and relate to the teen-parent relationship. Parents are engaged in sessions along with their child to support and increase their level of knowledge about adolescent development, risk-taking behaviors, and communication. Throughout the 24 month intervention, there are curricula-driven group activities. The Teens Making a Choice project has a randomized control group design using interview, self-report surveys, document review and staff observations as data sources. The evaluation of the program is comprised of both process and summative evaluations. Grant: $470,735 Contact: Peggy Seboldt; 937-223-7217 Ext. 2133 St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center Toledo, Ohio St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center is implementing the Positive Choices program, an adolescent pregnancy prevention program, in collaboration with Toledo Public Schools. Unique features of the program include ongoing after-school programming, an intensive summer program, peer mentoring, parent involvement, and inclusion of teens with special needs. Positive Choices conducts in-school abstinence education for the intervention group of seventh graders in three large urban junior high schools with racially diverse student populations that are at risk for problem behaviors. Classes of students are divided into an intervention group and a comparison group. The intervention group continues to receive in-school abstinence education, after-school, and summer programming. Students in both groups are followed up each year to assess the effects of the interventions on attitudes towards abstinence, refusal self-efficacy, intentions towards sexual activity, attitudes and behaviors regarding other risky behaviors such as drinking, smoking, and violent behaviors, and the effects of program dosage on the aforementioned measures. Grant: $300,000 Contact: Connie Cameron; 419-251-2453 Heritage Community Services Aiken, South Carolina This project uses "The Heritage Method" of programming which is comprised of a "450-minute high- impact interactive abstinence education component," a twelve-lesson character-based abstinence education component, a parent component, a faith community component, a media component, and a Family Assets and Character Council component. Youth are provided with abstinence education in a school setting, preferably for multiple years. The character-based component is a supportive element to the abstinence education and operates in a “club like” fashion. Heritage is conducting an agency-wide, as well as a project specific, evaluation that examines the differences between pre and post and follow up for each of its youth. A comparison strategy is also being implemented with this project using similar schools in South Carolina. Grant: $200,000 Contact: Shelia Whittington; 803-648-9199 Heritage Community Services Charleston, South Carolina This project uses "The Heritage Method" of programming which is comprised of a "450-minute high- impact interactive abstinence education component," a twelve-lesson character-based abstinence education component, a parent component, a faith community component, a media component, and a Family Assets and Character Council component. Youth are provided with abstinence education in a school setting, preferably for multiple years. The character-based component is a supportive element to the abstinence education and operates in a “club like” fashion. This project operates in an urban and a rural community in the Charleston area. Heritage is conducting an agency-wide, as well as a project specific, evaluation that examines the differences between pre and post and follow up for each of its youth. A comparison strategy is also being implemented with this project using similar schools in South Carolina. Grant: $300,000 Contact: Jerry Raymond; 843-863-0508, ext. 130 Break the Cycle, Inc. Loudon, Tennessee Break the Cycle (BTC) is conducting multiple interventions in two rural counties in Tennessee: Smith County (about 1 hour from Nashville) and Loudon County (about 30 minutes from Knoxville). The in-school program consists of conducting the Botvin LifeSkills substance abuse prevention curriculum, Managing Pressures Before Marriage, ActSmart HIV/AIDS curriculum, Baby Think It Over (BTIO), Empathy Belly, and puberty instruction. The project also uses a WAIT Team, high school students who are recruited to be abstinence educators and mentors for the middle school students, in the schools in both counties. Smith County also has an after-school program using the Community Works and LifeSkills curricula and cultural activities and community service. The program is innovative in combining multiple types of in-school programming with after-school programming that incorporates service learning projects, projects fostering creativity, and integration of risk avoidance knowledge with future oriented activities. Grant: $175,000 Contact: Linda Knight; 865-458-1597 Austin Learning Academy- NEW Austin, Texas Austin Learning Academy is implementing the Keepin’ It Real prevention demonstration project with middle school youth and their families in high risk middle schools in Austin, Texas. Youth are randomly assigned to receive high-intensity, campus based, after school and summer programming promoting sexual abstinence or to an alternative afterschool program. There are also services provided to parents and family members of youth in the intervention group in order to support the prevention messages delivered by the project. Grant: $473,000 Contact: Toni Williams; 512-457-9194 Fifth Ward Enrichment Program- NEW Houston, Texas The Fifth Ward Enrichment Program is implementing a prevention demonstration project with middle school and high school African American and Hispanic males in the Fifth Ward of Houston, Texas. The project uses abstinence education, violence prevention, and substance abuse prevention curricula, as well as mentoring, tutoring, and cultural and leadership development activities. Students receive tutoring and mentoring services from similar-race older men that are in college or on a career path. These mentoring services provide role modeling of successful African American men. The project utilizes a network of collaborative partners to provide the support and referral sources needed by the young men. Program participants are exposed to many activities and opportunities, including college and career visits, positive male role models who encourage abstinence and non-violence, and entrepreneurial and leadership development training. The program evaluation uses a quasiexperimental design to examine the outcomes of male youth in schools receiving the project compared with male youth in schools who do not receive program services. Grant: $475,000 Contact: Charles Savage; 713-229-8353 Baptist Child and Family Services San Antonio, Texas Baptist Child and Family Services is a non-profit, faith-based social services organization who has been providing services in South Texas for 60 years. The "Decisions for Life" (DFL) pregnancy prevention project targets approximately 300 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders at one middle school in San Antonio. The majority of these students are Hispanic from low income families. DFL has developed their own abstinence education curriculum that is infused with youth development principles. In addition to the in-class abstinence education component, Decisions for Life incorporates an after school asset-driven youth training program for youth from the intervention group. This component utilizes seven types of activities: community service, cultural appreciation, academic support/college prep, sports and fitness, arts, leadership training, and annual events. The project also works directly with a local comparison school. Data is gathered at pre, post, and follow up for both the intervention and comparison groups. The project is examining whether or not a difference exists once the in-school component is provided to youth. The project is also looking at whether or not the after school programming has a direct impact on youth beyond the abstinence education in school. Grant: $300,000 Contact: Janie Cook; 210-832-5000 Luisa Villarreal; 210-240-8866 James Madison University Harrisonburg, Virginia The Central Shenandoah Valley Teen Pregnancy Prevention (CSVTPP) is a collaborative initiative between James Madison University's Office on Children and Youth and the Central Shenandoah Valley Office on Youth. CSVTPP serves a rural region in Western Virginia. The program incorporates two main components. The first is the Abstinence Awareness Campaign which is a region-wide media effort to promote the message of abstinence. The second is the "Vision of You" educational intervention. This school-based intervention is a ten session choices and consequences program, targeting over 720 middle, high, and alternative school adolescents. This project utilizes portions of the "Game Plan" and "Navigator" curricula. This project is progressive in its attempt to affect the entire community and the community's acceptance of abstinence. Through the media campaign, the message of abstinence will become widespread and will support the efforts of the educational component with the targeted youth. The evaluation is specifically examining whether or not youth have a change in knowledge, attitude, and intention after receiving the Vision of You program. The project has comparison groups established to match most of the target population (at this time there is no Spanish comparison group available). The project is also evaluating the effects of the region wide media campaign through targeted surveys. In addition, JMU received a supplement to pilot a web based version of the survey instruments. Grant: $269,031 Contact: Jane Hubbell; 540-568-2558 Kim Hartzler-Weakley; 540-568-7083 Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians Bayfield, Wisconsin The Red Cliff Anishinabeg Family Values Project serves a rural Native American Reservation community. This project targets approximately 30-50 high risk youth ages 12-17 using a culturally based pregnancy prevention curriculum. The curriculum was designed by the Red Cliff Band's First American Prevention Center to promote strong identification with tribal values, reinforcement of sexual abstinence, and family responsibility. This project utilizes community involvement and support to reach adolescents and parents. Youth meet after school in their age appropriate groups and one evening per month with their families. This project fills a need in the community with respect to positive activities, tribal teachings, and adolescent pregnancy prevention education. The use of community leaders, tribal values, guest speakers, and the Junior Tribal Council all demonstrate the innovative characteristics of this project. The project uses a mix of quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods. Those youth who receive the intervention complete a pre, post, and follow up test. The local school serves as the comparison group for the quantitative evaluation. The project is also conducting focus groups and in depth interviews and case studies to gain a better understanding about specific program characteristics that are effective and those youth and families that experience some sort of change. Grant: $152,000 Contact: Lynne Basina; 715-779-3755