A Program Model for Encouraging Sexually Experienced Youth to Cease Sexual Activity

Sexually active adolescents are vulnerable to adverse health outcomes, such as unintended pregnancy. Empowering youth to make informed decisions, specifically decisions to avoid sexual risks, helps them avoid the potential negative consequences of adolescent sexual activity and contributes to their optimal health and well-being. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief presents a program model for sexual risk cessation. The model describes program inputs—the overall design, program features, and the infrastructure needed to support implementation—and implementation outputs—that is, aspects of staff, service delivery, and youth responsiveness—that can be assessed to know whether implementation occurred as expected. In addition, the program model specifies youth outcomes it intends to affect.