Louisville Teen Pregnancy Prevention Project

Reducing the Risk: Building Skills to Prevent Pregnancy, STD and HIV (RtR) was developed by Richard Barth, MSW, Ph.D. in California. The training manual is in its 5th Edition and was last published in 2011. This curriculum is one of the first that was evaluated using an experimental design, with a longitudinal follow up (6 months and 18 months) and tested on a large group of high school students (N = 758). It is also one of the first programs to show an impact on beliefs of adolescent sexual behavior prevalence and actual behavior as well as increasing parent-child communication about abstinence and contraception (Kirby, Barth, Leland, and Fetro, 1991).

The second healthy relationships program for high-risk youth, Love Notes, was developed to educate participants about healthy relationships, including issues of decision-making, communication and conflict resolution, and overall safety, including the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (Pearson, 2009). Love Notes is a derivative of the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP; Stanley, Markman, \& Jenkins, 2009), which is relationship marriage education program listed as an evidence-based practice (EBP) by SAMSHA (www.samhsa.gov). This curriculum builds on social exchange theory and meets the needs of youth who are alienated and in need of loving personal relationships.