Talking Parents, Healthy Teens: Evaluation Study

University of California at Los Angeles: UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion

Topics:
Healthy Youth | HIV/AIDS & STD Prevention

Parents can play a significant role in promoting healthy sexual development and risk reduction among adolescents. Adolescents who feel close to their parents and whose parents supervise them and talk with them about sex, are more likely to delay their first sexual relationship, have fewer sexual partners, and use contraceptives. However, many parents are uncertain about how to talk with their children about sexual health, and parents’ after-work demands leave little time to attend evening or weekend parenting classes to learn how to communicate with their children about sensitive issues. To address these issues, researchers designed and are evaluating an 8-week parenting program that was given to parents at their worksites during the lunch hour (see Worksite Program Helps Parents Promote Sexual Health Among Their Adolescents). The evaluation involves 572 parents with a total of 713 children in 6th–10th grade.

The research team is administering surveys to parents and their adolescents regularly over a period of almost 3 years. The results are being compared over time as well as with counterparts in a control group. Researchers are currently evaluating the program’s short- and long-term effects on parents’ relationships and communication with their adolescent children, and on adolescents’ assertiveness, attitudes, and sexual behaviors. If the program is effective, the facilitator manual for Talking Parents, Healthy Teens: A Curriculum for Parents of Adolescents, which contains all the information needed to learn and teach the program, will allow others to provide the program.

Read case study of this intervention.

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