Love Notes Shown Effective In Preventing Teen Pregnancy
The Dibble Institute is thrilled to announce that its relationship skills program, Love Notes, has been added to list of teen pregnancy prevention Evidence Based Programs (EBP) maintained by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. Love Notes was included based on statistically significant decreases in sexual activity, increases in contraceptive use, and avoidance of pregnancy.
"We are pleased that we now have proof that relationship skills education is an effective strategy to prevent teen pregnancy, " Kay Reed, Executive Director of The Dibble Institute noted. "It's great to have a new approach that works, especially with high-risk youth between the ages of 14 and 19."
Love Notes, a comprehensive healthy relationship education curriculum written by Marline E. Pearson, teaches young people how to build healthy romantic relationships as well as how to preventing dating violence and avoid unprotected sex. Love Notes was evaluated inCHAMPS (Creating Healthy Adolescents through Meaningful Prevention Services), a 5-year $4.8 million study through the Kent School of Social Work, University of Louisville. Anita Barbee, Ph.D. was the Principal Investigator.
The study consisted of a cluster-randomized trial involving over 1,400 youth. Stringent data analyses examined data from 933 at-risk, low-income youth including urban, foster, refugee, and immigrant participants who were recruited from 23 community-based organizations.