Part 1: Table of Contents |
Programs for Parents of Students in Sexuality Education Classes
Schools represent the one institution in our society where nearly
all youth are involved in an ongoing, organized, systematic manner.
Approximately half of all youth are enrolled in school when they
first initiate sexual intercourse.1 The vast majority of young people
participate in some type of sexuality education program one or
more times while they are in school. Given this considerable
potential, a number of educators have tried to reach parents
through school programs.
One way to reach the parents of students in sexuality education
classes is to offer parent orientation programs associated with these
classes.These programs can simply review for parents the topics
and materials their children will cover in class.They can also provide
parents with information and
skill-building activities.
As part of its ENABL
(Education Now and Babies
Later) campaign, the California
Office of Family Planning funded
contractors to implement
activities for parents.2 These
activities included parent
information sessions about the
Postponing Sexual Involvement
(PSI) curriculum, courses offering
the PSI for Parents curriculum,
and alternative activities, such as parent nights and PTA meetings
at which ENABL was discussed. Parents of about 19 percent of all
students in the ENABL study attended one or more of these
events; most of them reviewed the PSI curriculum.
In a 17-month evaluation of middle school youth participating in
ENABL, results indicated that students who received the PSI curriculum
reported neither a significant increase in parent-child communication
nor a delay in initiation of sexual intercourse. While these results
are not encouraging,we should remember that this study measured
the impact of parent activities upon all students who received the
student PSI curriculum, not the impact upon only those 19 percent
of students whose parents attended one or more parent activities.
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Youth Risk
Behavior Surveillance-United States, 1999," Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report, June 9, 2000, vol. 49, no SS-5.
- D. Kirby, M. Korpi, R. Barth, and H. Cagampang, Evaluation of
Education Now and Babies Later (ENABL), Final Report (Berkeley,
CA: University of California, School of Social Welfare,1995)
For more information, contact siecus@siecus.org.
copyright © 2003, SIECUS
Web Master: siecus@siecus.org
http://www.familiesaretalking.org
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