Integrating Positive Youth Development into PREP Programming

The Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), a key program of the Family and Youth Services Bureau of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, was created to address teen pregnancy. PREP grantees are required to include the Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach in their program design. PYD provides a framework to create and implement effective programs to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among youth using six adulthood preparation subjects (APSs) that support youth in the transition to adulthood. These APSs include healthy relationships, adolescent development, financial literacy, parent-child communication, education and career success, and healthy life skills. This brief offers PREP grantees an overview of the PYD key concepts and evidence base. The brief also includes a set of PYD practices and a table of examples where PYD can support APS programming, drawn from PREP grantees.