Educational programEvaluation of the parents as primary sexuality educators program
Section snippets
Program design
The PAPSE program was designed by the Family Resource Centers of Rochester to help support parents in communicating effectively with their children about sexuality. PAPSE attempts to recruit parents of young children (ages infant–12 years) in particular. The program consists of a series of four core and two optional group workshops delivered over a period of approximately one month. Community residents (most are parents themselves) undergo at least 15 hours of structured training, and serve as
Results
A majority of the respondents were female (92%) and nonwhite (53% black, 32% white, 8% Hispanic, 5% other or multiracial). Their mean age was 36.33 years (±11.38) with the actual ages ranging from 19 through 77 years. On average, participants reported having three children (2.59, ±1.76) under the age of 18 with children’s mean age equaling 6.22 years (± 3.58).
Discussion
The PAPSE program improved parents’ abilities to communicate about sensitive topics such as sex/intercourse, HIV and STDs, and standards for sexual behavior. After participating in the workshop series, parents reported having a greater ability to initiate conversations with children and feeling more comfortable responding to their children’s questions.
A strength of this program is that it was able to reach a very hard to engage population—parents who are disconnected from family, school, and
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Rochester Coalition Partnership for the Prevention of Teen Pregnancy and the Metro Council for Teen Potential. The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not represent the views of the funding agencies.
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2022, Children and Youth Services ReviewCitation Excerpt :While there are differences among youth by type of system(s) involvement, there are also similarities, including in response to sexual health curriculum (Combs et al., 2019). Youth often turn to their parents/caregivers for information on sex and sexual health (Klein, Sabaratnam, Pazos, Auerbach, Havens, & Brach, 2005; Lindberg, Maddow-Zimet, & Boonstra, 2016). The parent/caregiver-child relationship can serve as a protective factor for sexual risk behavior (Kirby & Lepore, 2007; Parera & Surı́s, 2004; Sneed, 2008).
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