Teen Talk

The Teen Talk program was developed in 1983 to 1984 to help adolescents become aware of the serious negative consequences of teenage pregnancy, the likelihood that they can become pregnant, and the benefits of and barriers to abstinence and contraceptive use. During its pilot phase, the program was implemented in family planning (such as Planned Parenthood) and health-specific organizations for youth populations. In addition, the curriculum was tested within a single small independent school system consisting of one high school and one middle school. The curriculum combines large group presentations on reproductive health, physiology, and contraception with small group discussion sessions during which participants engage in role-playing and role reversal, and practice decision-making and refusal skills. This combination of approaches is designed to help the students comprehend and personalize the risks and consequences of becoming pregnant as teenagers, develop the skills needed to remain abstinent, and learn and understand more about contraception.

The goal of this program is to educate adolescents about teen pregnancy, abstinence, and contraceptive.

A controlled study involving 1,444 teenage males and females 13 through 19 years of age was performed to compare the Teen Talk program with other sexual and pregnancy prevention programs already in place. Results were generally positive, but somewhat inconsistent across different groups. This suggests that the curriculum should be tailored to the unique and specific characteristics of the given population in order to maximize effectiveness. Overall the program was more effective for boys than for girls. One year after the program ended, of the boys who had no previous intercourse, program participants were significantly more likely to stay abstinent than boys who were not in the program. For boys who were sexually active before the program, those participating in the program were significantly more likely to have used contraception at the one-year follow-up than boys not in the program.