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Finding What Works
The Report to Delay Teenage Sexual Activity
By Kelly Burgess
The researchers' focus was to replicate a program called PSI, which stands for Postponing Sexual Involvement. The program was originally developed at Emory University. Dr. Jenkins and Anderson tweaked the program in a couple of areas. First of all, rather than relying just on data collected over the phone, they used a more pure experimental model with an intervention group and control group. Second, they expanded the program to include wider school involvement, so that rather than just being one class or session once a week, there were assemblies, small group activities, posters around the school and other events and activities aimed at reinforcing the idea of postponing sexual activity.
"Being able to engage the school is important, especially when you're up against a society where your children are constantly bombarded with messages that seem very opposed to the one we're trying to get out about delaying sex," says Dr. Jenkins. "Keeping the kids' focused on responsible sexual choices is easier if you can keep it in the forefront in the places where they spend their time."
Dr. Jenkins notes that this approach is especially effective with girls. "PSI is based upon skill building, and that's particularly important with girls because at that age they don't know how to respond when someone is pressuring them to have sex," she says. "Unfortunately, the program was not as successful with boys. While the researchers saw knowledge gains for both boys and girls, they did not see behavioral changes in boys."
There are probably a variety of factors to explain this lack of effectiveness, but Dr. Jenkins speculates that a primary reason is simply that early and frequent sexual activity does not have the stigma for boys that it does for girls. "I have to say that right now we're just very frustrated about how to approach boys and get the message across that they should wait to have sex," she says. Anderson adds that getting boys to take sexual responsibility more seriously is a big challenge, because it almost requires society to construct a radically different social norm – and one that kids will accept.
