FAMILIES UNITED TO PREVENT TEEN PREGNANCY (FUPTP)

OVERVIEW

Families United to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (FUPTP) is an abstinence education after-school program.  In an analysis of the FUPTP program’s effectiveness, 8 to13 year-olds in Milwaukee, Wisconsin were assigned to a program group or a control group.  Members of the program group were given the option of attending the FUPTP program as often as they chose.  Five years after the study commenced, no significant differences were found between students assigned to the FUPTP program and students assigned to the control group on measures of abstinence rate, age of sexual onset, number of sexual partners, pregnancy rate, STD acquisition, birth control use, and condom use.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

Target population: 8 to 13 year-olds

Families United to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (FUPTP) is an abstinence education after-school program, funded by Title V, Section 510 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.  All such programs have as their exclusive purpose “teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity.” 

The FUPTP program meets after school for two and a half hours every day.  Program attendance is entirely voluntary; students can attend as frequently or as infrequently as they choose.  A key component of FUPTP’s after-school activities is its abstinence curriculum: “A Life Options Model Curriculum for Youth.”  This curriculum covers ten topic areas, nearly all of which have abstinence as a central focus: group-building, self-esteem, value and goal-setting, decision-making skills, risk-taking behavior, communication skills, relationships and sexuality, adolescent development and anatomy, STDs, and social skills. 

In addition to the after-school program, FUPTP includes services such as parent workshops, a Saturday teen mentoring program, and a summer program with teen mentors.

EVALUATION(S) OF PROGRAM

Evaluated population: Between 1999 and 2001, students aged 8 to 13 attending selected elementary and middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin were identified as potential participants for this study.  These students were invited to take part in the program and 504 chose to participate.  414 (82%) of these students completed follow-up surveys.  Two percent of these students were white, 76 percent were black, 7 percent were Hispanic, and 15 percent were of other ethnicity.  The sample was 62 percent female; 2 percent of the students’ parents were married.

Approach: Students who chose to participate were randomly assigned to the program group or to the control group.  Students assigned to the program group had the option of attending the FUPTP after-school program whenever they pleased.  Control group students did not have this option.  While at school, both the program group and the control group received Milwaukee’s mandatory family life curriculum.  This curriculum begins in kindergarten and continues through 12^th grade, with units on abstinence and contraceptive use beginning in 5^th grade. 

Students completed surveys at baseline that assessed their participation in risk behaviors and their knowledge and perceptions of sex.  They completed three subsequent surveys over the course of the following 42 to 78 months.

Results: 43 percent of students assigned to the program group participated in less than 25 percent of the FUPTP classes.  Only a fraction of those who participated above this level attended most or all of the classes available.  Nonetheless, contact hours were still high for program students.  The average FUPTP participant who attended at least 25 percent of activities received 146 hours of program services in the first year.

FUPTP had no positive impact on students’ sexual behaviors.  At the final follow-up (which occurred, on average, five years after a student entered the study), students assigned to the treatment group were no more likely to be abstinent than were students assigned to the control group.  Further, treatment students were no more likely to have abstained over the past year.  FUPTP students were significantly more likely than control students to report an intent to remain abstinent until marriage, but were not more likely to intend to remain abstinent during high school or during their teenage years. 

Compared with control students, FUPTP students were just as likely to have had four or more sexual partners and they did not report having waited longer to start having sex.  They did not report using condoms or birth control any more frequently, and they were just as likely to have become pregnant, had a baby, or acquired an STD. 

The program had no impact on other risk behaviors.  Students assigned to the FUPTP intervention and students assigned to the control group were equally likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and use marijuana.

The intervention group had a marginally greater knowledge of STD consequences. The FUPTP intervention did not lead to greater knowledge of the risks of unprotected sex, nor did it lead to understanding the preventative power of condoms.  Compared with control students, program students were significantly more likely to incorrectly identify condoms as never preventing against herpes and HPV. However, they were marginally more likely to believe that condoms usually prevent HIV and were significantly more likely to believe that birth control pills usually prevent pregnancy.

In non-experimental analyses, the researchers discovered no new trends when they analyzed only those students who actually attended the FUPTP program.

SOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

Website: http://www.rosaliemanor.org/programs/fuptup.html

References:

Trenholm, C., Devaney, B., Fortson, K., Quay, L., Wheeler, J., & Clark, M.  (2007).  Impacts of Four Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Programs.  Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

KEYWORDS: Children (3-11), Adolescence (12-17), Elementary School, Middle School, White or Caucasian, African American or Black, Mentoring, Summer Program, Urban, Sexual Activity, STD/HIV/AIDS, Teen Pregnancy, Condom Use and Contraception, Tobacco Use, Marijuana Use, Alcohol Use, Males and Females, Community-Based, After-school Program, Abstinence Education, Births.

Program information last updated on 7/28/11.

© Child Trends 2003