By Nicole Levitz, MPH | August 3, 2017
Associate Director of Digital Health Education, Planned Parenthood Federation of America

“Meet people where they are.”

As sex educators we spend an enormous amount of time talking about this concept. It might mean starting with the basics, but it also means bringing interventions to folks, not just expecting them to come to us. That’s why Planned Parenthood developed and evaluated Chat/Text.

By Shaunae Motley | June 20, 2017
Director of Programs, Quest for Change

Every May, our communities mark National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month. It’s a fine opportunity to reflect on the difference prevention work makes in the lives of young people. Since peaking in 1991, teen births have dropped 64%. This historic decline includes significant progress in all 50 states and among all racial and ethnic groups.

However, despite these advances, disparities continue to exist—by age, race and ethnicity, geography and among youth from low-income families. 

By ETR | May 15, 2017

Later this week, ETR will be hosting Year 2 of the Kirby Summit. This extraordinary event brings together national experts in adolescent development, developmental neuroscience and sexual and reproductive health. 

Last year’s goal was to explore the unique intersection between these fields and discover new ways to understand sexual health and risk for adolescents. 

By Laura Perkins, MLS | May 4, 2017
Project Editor, ETR

Over a recent weekend trip with a group of kids ages 10-13, I decided to bring along some DVDs for fun. I checked Common Sense Media’s User Reviews and saw that parents and kids had rated the movies appropriate for 10+. I didn’t bother with actually reading the comments.

By Marcia Quackenbush, MS, MFT, MCHES | April 7, 2017
Senior Editor, ETR

Teen pregnancy rates are down. A wide range of statistics and figures show this. If you work in the field of adolescent health, you’ve certainly already heard this news.

Think for a moment about how you hold that information in your mind. Perhaps you remember the rate of births per 1,000 females aged 15-19 years. You might think about a national map that shows state rankings in teen birth rates. Maybe colorful bar graphs or pie charts come to mind.

By Marcia Quackenbush | February 7, 2017
Senior Editor, ETR

How do we keep youth engaged in school and community? How do we help them think critically about the issues that affect them? How can we help them raise their voices and speak out as effective citizens? I believe we have reached a time in our history as a nation where these are some of the most important skills we can offer young people.

Education experts have suggested a range of answers to these questions. I recently learned about an approach that is truly promising: Ethics Bowls. 

By Karin Coyle, PhD | December 19, 2016
Senior Research Associate, ETR

ETR is delighted to announce the release of our report on the 2016 Kirby Summit. If you work with adolescents to address sexual and reproductive health, I strongly encourage you to check it out.

Here’s why. We deliberately designed this invited Summit to challenge and disrupt what we thought we knew about adolescent health behaviors.

By Jill Glassman, PhD | September 20, 2016
Senior Research Associate, ETR

The field of teen pregnancy prevention (TPP) has experienced some impressive achievements over the past decades. By examining the evidence from evaluation studies, we’ve been able to identify programs showing effectiveness in reducing sexual risk taking among broadly defined populations of at-risk youth. ETR scientist Dr. Douglas Kirby was instrumental in developing and disseminating a list of effective characteristics for sexual health education programs, and in disseminating information about risk and protective factors that are key to our understanding of how these programs work.

The majority of these TPP programs originally were developed for high-school-age youth. More recently, however, there has been a shift to earlier pregnancy prevention efforts focusing on younger adolescents (10-14 year olds). Fewer of these youth are already engaging in the targeted sexual risk behaviors.