Thrive: Sexual Health Collective for Youth

Central Oklahoma Teen Pregnancy Prevention Collaboration

Published 2019

Program Description 

The Central Oklahoma Teen Pregnancy Prevention Collaboration (the Collaboration) provides comprehensive sexual health education and improves access to teen-friendly reproductive health services in Central Oklahoma. The Collaboration follows a collective impact model to implement a comprehensive plan that outlines strategies in the education, medical, and community settings. OPA funding is being used to evaluate the collaboration’s collective impact approach, which includes leveraging funding from multiple sectors, enhancing communication among different organizations and the community, and reviewing the perceived effectiveness of peer education on teen pregnancy prevention interventions.

Program Snapshot 

• Population: Youth (ages 13-19) and their families
• Location(s): Oklahoma County, OK
• Partners: Kirkpatrick Family Fund, Lilyfield, Mid-Del Public Schools, Oklahoma City-County Health Department, Oklahoma City Public Schools, Oklahoma Health Care Authority, Parent Promise, Planned Parenthood Great Plains, Teen emPower!, Texas A&M University, and Variety Care

Goals 

1. Education: provide age-appropriate sexual health education in schools
2. Medical: ensure access to teen-friendly reproductive health services
3. Community: engage youth, parents, faith communities, and youth-serving organizations in teen pregnancy prevention efforts

Strategies

Collective impact approach
The Collaboration brings together over fifty organizations from different sectors to work toward the common goal of reducing teen pregnancy in Central Oklahoma. As a “backbone” organization, Thrive leads this public-private collaboration by providing long-term planning and convening working groups where community members, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies develop solutions to youth reproductive health challenges, with a focus on three service areas: education, medical, and community.

Sexual risk reduction education for youth and parents
OPA Teen Pregnancy Prevention Tier 2 Program funding supports two of the Collaboration’s education curricula. Postponing Sexual Involvement (PSI) uses a peer education model in which an adult educator teaches 7th-grade students about reproductive health, and a high school student leads activities focused on resisting peer pressure. The Collaboration is also using OPA funding to pilot a parent education program called Teen Speak, which teaches parents to use motivational interviewing techniques to talk with their teens about difficult topics, including sex, drug and alcohol use, and suicide. In addition to PSI and Teen Speak, the Collaboration provides a range of sexual health education programs in schools and in the community, funded by multiple sources both public and private. 

Increasing access to reproductive health services
Students who participate in the Collaboration’s education programs receive a teen referral guide, which explains how to access local teen-friendly reproductive health services and includes sections on making appointments, talking to providers, and confidentiality. The Collaboration also works with medical providers to make their services more accessible to teens: initiatives include having youth advise medical clinics on how they can be more teen friendly and developing a guide with best practices for providing reproductive health services to youth.

Community engagement
The Collaboration strives to include local youth, parents, faith communities, and youth-serving organizations in the planning and implementation of its teen pregnancy prevention efforts. As part of this approach, the Collaboration conducted a needs assessment to determine community members’ needs, barriers, and attitudes around youth reproductive health and will use the results to inform future programming. In addition, the Collaboration’s Youth Leadership Council gives teens an active voice in guiding the implementation of youth programs, including teen-friendly clinic practices, PSI, and the teen referral guide.

Stats at a Glance

• 32.3 Oklahoma County teen birth rate (per 1,000 females ages 15-19) in 2017¹
• 18.8 National teen birth rate (per 1,000 females ages 15-19) in 2017²
• 350 Survey responses received through the community needs assessment project
• 162 Students participated in Postponing Sexual Involvement
• 50+ Organizations involved in The Central Oklahoma Teen Pregnancy Prevention Collaboration

Grantee Information 

Laura Lang
CEO
405-486-4974
llang@thriveokc.org
https://thriveokc.org/ 

Print the full success story here - PDF. (Content is undergoing 508 review and will be updated pending remediation. For immediate assistance, please contact: opa@hhs.gov.)

About the TPP Program 

The Office of Population Affairs Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Program is a federal grant program that funds diverse organizations working to prevent teen pregnancy across the United States. OAH invests in both the implementation of evidence-based programs and the development and evaluation of new and innovative approaches to prevent teen pregnancy. The OAH TPP Program reaches adolescents age 10-19, with a focus on populations with the greatest need in order to reduce disparities in teen pregnancy and birth rates.

Footnotes

1 Oklahoma State Department of Health, Center for Health Statistics, Health Care Information, Vital Statistics. (2017). Oklahoma Statistics on Health Available for Everyone (OK2SHARE). Retrieved from https://www.health.state.ok.us/ok2share/

2 Martin, J.A., Hamilton, B.E., Osterman, M.J., Driscoll, A.K., & Drake, M.S. (2018). Births: Final data for 2017. National Vital Statistics Report, 67(8). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_08-508.pdf