Taking Time for Teens (T3) in Southwest Georgia

Background:

The purpose of this project is to replicate evidenced-based teen pregnancy prevention programs in Georgia’s Public Health District 8-2, which comprises 14 mostly rural counties in southwest Georgia. We propose that saturating the counties with prevention services will result in a reduction in pregnancies, STD/Is and teen births among high school teens (ages 15-19), over a 3-year period.

Program background:

The project is being implemented in counties that make up Public Health District 8-2. The 8 counties with teen birth rates higher than the state receive direct services (evidence-based program), the remaining 4 counties receive indirect services (parent/youth groups, multi-media messaging). The four evidence-based programs being implemented for the project in the 8 direct counties include the following: 13 session - Love Notes SRA EBP, 10 session – Too Good for Drugs, 1 session- My PLAN A, and 1 session- SPORT Prevention Plus Wellness. The indirect services for the project include Youth Leadership Councils (YLC), Parent Engagement Groups (PEG), T3P Groups, and Community Mobilization. The project partnered with public high schools and community-based organizations for implementation of the project.

Evaluation Methods and Results:

An implementation and outcome evaluation is assessing who the program is reaching, whether the EBIs are being implemented with fidelity, retention and engagement of participants, youth attitudes and beliefs about sexual health and perceived ability to avoid sexual risk behavior. An outcome evaluation will examine teen birth rates at the end of the project. Year 3 of implementation completed in April 2023, and evaluation is in process. In year 3, we were able to reach our target reach for implementation. We hope to have results to share by the time of the conference.

Conclusions:

It was important to work with each school to determine what Evidence Based Program would work best with their schedule and for their students. Additionally, each school determined if they preferred their own teachers to be trained in the programs or if they preferred someone from the community to be trained and implement the identified EBP. We had success in engaging youth utilizing TikTok videos developed by youth, for other youth. Ensuring that facilitators in each county were trained in the evidence-based programs was essential for effective scheduling of implementation and increasing sustainability.

Implications for research and/or practice:

The T3 Project’s implications for research support the importance of including youth in projects that impact them. It gives them a voice and allows them the opportunity to address important issues in a manner that resonates with their peers. Additionally, this project lends itself to the how essential it is to use tools, resources, and strategies that enable the project’s team to meet the youth and community members where they are as it relates to issues that impact them.