The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) held the Linking Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Families to Employment and Economic Opportunities Meeting in August 2017. This meeting allowed TANF program representatives from around the country the opportunity to learn about promising practices and actionable implementation strategies to improve employment outcomes and economic independence among TANF families. This session included the efforts of the Office of Adolescent Health to Coordinate adolescent health initiatives across HHS, including Teenage Pregnancy Prevention programs.

The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) held the Linking Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Families to Employment and Economic Opportunities Meeting in August 2017. This meeting allowed TANF program representatives from around the country the opportunity to learn about promising practices and actionable implementation strategies to improve employment outcomes and economic independence among TANF families. This session included the TANF efforts to reduce non-martial births, including abstinence programs, visiting nurse services, and services for youth such as teen pregnancy prevention, counseling, and after-school programs.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief highlights evidence on the impacts of the Teen Choice curriculum for youth in alternative schools in and around New York City. Because alternative schools provide supplemental services to address the specific needs of youth, these schools often find it difficult to fit pregnancy prevention programming into the regular school day. The program was delivered by trained staff from the program developer, Inwood House, with federal grant funding to the New York State Department of Health from the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), one of the largest federally funded programs designed to address adolescent pregnancy and prepare youth for successful transition to adulthood.

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.

The avoidance of sexual activity among youth not only prevents unplanned pregnancies but can also promote healthy outcomes and contribute to the positive development of youth. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report provides summary estimates of the net lifetime benefit that accrues when a single adolescent chooses to delay voluntary sexual activity. These estimates are useful for valuing the type of changes in behavior that are possible in response to federally funded and other sexual risk avoidance and teen pregnancy prevention programs.

The Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) is one of the largest federally funded programs designed to address adolescent pregnancy. PREP legislation requires grantees incorporate into their programs content on at least three of six adulthood preparation subjects (APSs): adolescent development, healthy life skills, educational and career success, parent-child communication, financial literacy, and healthy relationships. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report presents conceptual models for each of the six APSs, and a unified framework that identifies commonalities across the models and provides guidance for including a positive youth development approach in APS programming.

The Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) is one of the largest federally funded programs designed to address adolescent pregnancy and prepare youth for successful transition to adulthood. PREP grantees have flexibility in designing and implementing programs, provided they adhere to certain requirements specified in the legislation, including educating youth on at least three of six adulthood preparation subjects (APSs): adolescent development, healthy life skills, educational and career success, parent-child communication, financial literacy, and healthy relationships. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief offers guidance to grantees who want to or already address financial literacy in their PREP program.

The Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) is one of the largest federally funded programs designed to address adolescent pregnancy. PREP grantees have flexibility in designing and implementing programs, provided they adhere to certain requirements specified in the legislation, including educating youth on at least three of six adulthood preparation subjects (APSs): adolescent development, healthy life skills, educational and career success, parent-child communication, financial literacy, and healthy relationships. Incorporating the APSs into PREP programming is important for pregnant and parenting youth, who might need supports in areas beyond, but related to, preventing repeat pregnancies. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief explores how APS programming might be tailored to meet the needs of pregnant and parenting youth participating in PREP.

Sexual risk avoidance education (SRAE) is a primary prevention approach that promotes the development of life skills related to healthy relationships, decision making, goal setting, and self-regulation, as well as the benefits of avoiding non-marital sexual activity and other risky behaviors. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation tip sheet highlights several practical examples of how the model can be used by practitioners, such as: 

• Referring to the program inputs to ensure that key topics, resources, and systems are in place for successful SRAE programming;
• Using the implementation outputs as measures to monitor program fidelity and continuously improve programs over time; and
• Reviewing expected outcomes to ensure programming targets the factors that research shows are associated with the avoidance of sexual activity among youth.

The Sexual Risk Avoidance Education (SRAE) grant program—a federally funded adolescent pregnancy prevention initiative administered by the Family and Youth Services Bureau—teaches youth how to voluntarily refrain from non-marital sexual activity. The primary audience for this Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report includes those who support SRAE program efforts nationwide, including federal staff, state staff, and provider organizations.