A THREE TIER APPROACH
TO ABSTINENCE EDUCATION

Consistency in Messages

The three-tier abstinence approach recognizes the changing developmental and experiential status of adolescents. Each Postponing Sexual Involvement level builds upon and reinforces what has been presented before. It assures that young people are given consistent messages over time in elementary, middle, and high school and that, at each stage, the benefits of postponing sexual involvement are reinforced along with the problems that can be caused by risky sexual behavior.

Significant Initial Findings

A Ford Foundation funded evaluation of the first program, Postponing Sexual Involvement for Young Teens, resulted in two significant findings:

1. Many young people do not want to become sexually involved at young ages and given a supportive skill-building program will delay sexual involvement.
2. Providing abstinence education as part of a comprehensive sex education program can result in gains in both the delay of sex and increased use of methods of protection.

Need for a Multi-Tier Approach

Despite the success of that first middle school abstinence education program, it soon became clear that many young people already had had sex by the 7th or 8th grade when the program was given. Therefore, issues related to postponing sexual involvement needed to be addressed earlier in an age-appropriate manner—at the 5th or 6th grade level. A preteen curriculum was then created: Postponing Sexual Involvement for Preteens.

It also became evident that age-appropriate reinforcement programming at the high school level offered promise of sustaining previous gains. Therefore, the Jane Fonda Center co-authored a follow-up high school curriculum, Postponing Sexual Involvement for Teens.

Ongoing Evaluations

Each year, the Jane Fonda Center assists the Teen Services Program at Grady Hospital in assessing the ongoing efficacy of its use of the Postponing Sexual Involvement Educational Series for Young Teens through pre and post-testing of over 1,000 students. These results are compared to findings from the initial five-year study.

The Jane Fonda Center now has a six year data set on over 6,000 students that includes information about:

• reproductive health knowledge
• understanding of rights
• attitudes toward peer influence
• self-efficacy
• prior sexual involvement
• intended future sexual behaviors

Identification of changes in student attitudes and behaviors over time helps aids in the continual process of updating the program and keeping the materials relevant to the needs of today’s students. It also helps shape the development of new materials.