ACES: Abstinence and Contraception Education Storehouse

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although sexual activity among U.S. high school-age students has declined over the last decade, U.S. teens remain at high risk of acquiring HIV and other STDs. Approximately 25% of sexually active teens contract an STD each year. An estimated half of all new HIV infections in the U.S. occur in people under age 25. Further, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate remains significantly higher than that of other industrialized countries, and its unintended-pregnancy and abortion rates are among the highest. In response to this problem, a number of behavioral interventions for teens have been developed, that have shown efficacy in reducing unsafe sexual practices that lead to pregnancy and STDs/HIV. The programs focus significantly on recognizing social influences, and changing group and individual norms, include skills-building activities, and provide modeling and practice in communication, negotiation and refusal skills through techniques such as role play and group discussions. However, teachers and practitioners often find it difficult to implement them as they require the use of interactive teaching methods, something that many educators are unfamiliar with. The proposed project, entitled the Abstinence and Contraception Education Storehouse (ACES), proposes to develop a library of educational resources that can be used to supplement and enhance skill-building activities in teen sexual risk reduction interventions. The ACES educational resources will be a series of video vignettes and clips with a two-fold aim: (a) to offer teachers/practitioners a variety of interactive skill-building activities and exercises that can supplement and enhance program content and activities in the intervention being implemented by them, and (b) to train teachers and practitioners to implement interactive skill-building program components by offering demonstrations/training in interactive teaching, ACES will have two product components: (1) The ACES Youth Activities library that will demonstrate a variety of role play scenarios and group discussions organized around key topic areas in the area of teen HIV/AIDS/STDS and pregnancy prevention. (2) The ACES Teacher Training library that contains video clips offering guidance on conducting interactive teaching sessions. The role-plays and group discussion video vignettes in ACES will be drawn from Sociometrics' Program Archive for Sexuality, Health and Adolescence (PASHA), an ongoing collection of 33 promising teen pregnancy and STD/HIV/AIDS prevention programs. The ACES library video components will be digitized and can be accessed via the Internet or on a DVD. The ACES project will enable teachers and practitioners to improve program delivery of teen sexual risk reduction programs by offering training in interactive teaching methods, and by allowing them to supplement their interventions with skill building activities that will promote active youth engagement and involvement.