What's Happening

By ETR | July 19, 2016
Note: We're posting about some of the presentations ETR researchers and professional development specialists are offering at the Office of Adolescent Health Teen Pregnancy Prevention Grantee Conference July 19-21.

“You can’t affect the health and well-being of youth if no one knows you exist,” proclaims Kathy Plomer, MPH. Kathy is a member of ETR’s DASH Professional Learning Collaborative. In a perfect world, she acknowledges, doing good work would be enough to get people’s attention, support and participation.

“But we don’t live in that perfect world,” she continues. “Sometimes you need to employ some good, old-fashioned marketing techniques to get noticed.”

By ETR | July 19, 2016
Note: We're posting about some of the presentations ETR researchers and professional development specialists are offering at the Office of Adolescent Health Teen Pregnancy Prevention Grantee Conference July 19-21.

Teen parents face a number of challenges. When a teen mother has a rapid repeat birth—a second (or more) child before age 20—the challenges become even greater. Almost 1 in 5 teen births is a repeat birth, and only about 1 in 5 sexually active teen mothers use the most effective birth control methods.

For the past 6 years, ETR researcher Pam Drake, PhD, has been collaborating with Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine on a project designed to support teen parents and prevent unintended repeat births. One strategy in the project is to increase the use of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC). These contraceptives, including IUDs and hormonal implants, are the most effective available today, and are safe for most women, including adolescents.

On Wednesday, July 20, Dr. Drake and co-presenters Mona Desai, MPH, Leslie Clark, PhD and Vivian Okonta, all from CHLA, are offering a poster describing how they measured the consistency of contraception use over time with the teen mothers participating in their project.

By ETR | July 18, 2016

A dynamic group of ETR researchers and professional development specialists will be presenting posters and panels at the upcoming Office of Adolescent Health Teen Pregnancy Prevention Grantee Conference. The conference takes place in Baltimore July 19-21. The theme is “Connecting the Dots: Collaborating to Achieve Lasting Impacts for Youth.” We’ll be posting here about some of their presentations over the coming days.

We hope you’ll keep an eye out for these posts. Even if your work isn’t specific to the field of adolescent sexual health, you’ll find insights and information useful for program developers, health education researchers, front line providers and people who design and deliver trainings.

The conference hashtag is #2016TPP. Check the LinkedIn Teen Pregnancy Prevention Networking Group to hear more about TPP and to connect with attendees.

By ETR | July 18, 2016
Note: We’re posting about some of the presentations ETR researchers and professional development specialists are offering at the Office of Adolescent Health Teen Pregnancy Prevention Grantee Conference July 19-21.

“Evaluations don’t happen in isolation,” say ETR researchers Pam Drake, PhD and BA Laris, MPH. Programs need to involve developers, administrators, implementers and evaluators to come up with an evaluation plan that will produce meaningful results.

On Wednesday, July 20, they’ll be presenting a poster on A Team Approach to Data Collection and Evaluation Planning. “It’s important to think about both big-scope and smaller questions,” they explain. Here are some factors to keep in mind.

By ETR | July 18, 2016
Note: We're posting about some of the presentations ETR researchers and professional development specialists are offering at the Office of Adolescent Health Teen Pregnancy Prevention Grantee Conference, July 19-20.

Learned anything new lately? Your brain is being bombarded by massive amounts of information every minute—sights, sounds, words, smells, sensations. What happens to all of that info? Thankfully, most of it is forgotten. Your brain takes a look at it and decides what to ignore and when to pay attention.

If you’re an implementer working with teens to build healthy skills for pregnancy prevention, you’ve got critical messages and skills you want these learners to attend to. What should you do? Use amazing brain science to make learning stick!

By Tracy Wright, MAED | July 12, 2016
Project Director, ETR

Are you a trainer or facilitator? You can improve the delivery of your learning opportunities by spending a little more time thinking like a marketer, and a little less thinking like an instructional designer.

In Part 1 of this post, we reviewed the use of learning objectives to support effective instructional design. I suggested that while carefully constructed learning objectives are a vital step in the design of a learning opportunity, they may not be the best choice when promoting or delivering a training.

Remember, the three most important purposes of sharing learning objectives with participants are:

1. To describe what the event is about.
2. To focus learners’ attention on the critical content.
3. To motivate people to act (e.g., register for the event, attend the event, change their behavior as a result of the event).

Let’s look at some different but effective approaches to achieving each of these ends.

By Robin Perlas | July 11, 2016
Training Coordinator, ETR

Last week will go down in history as one of the bloodiest in US history. In the few days following our nation’s Independence Day holiday weekend, racially-charged gun violence took the lives of a number of civilians as well as five police officers. Investigations are ongoing and many facts remain to be uncovered. What we do know is that a lot of people are in mourning, and our country is once again divided at its core.

By Emily Waterman, MS | July 7, 2016
PhD Candidate at Pennsylvania State University & ETR Kirby Summer Intern

Young adulthood, the time of life around ages 18-28, is an exciting period for development. Young adults often establish lifelong health habits, solidify world views, and make important decisions about work and family life. They also tend to engage in more risk behavior than people of other ages do.

By Tracy Wright, MAED | July 6, 2016
Project Director, ETR

Do you design or deliver trainings? Then try something with me. Think about your answers to these two True/False questions.

1. When designing a learning opportunity, the first thing you should do is construct your learning objectives. This best-practice step guides effective training design. (T/F)
2. When promoting the learning opportunity or delivering the training, best practice calls for sharing these same learning objectives with participants. (T/F)

By Vignetta Charles, PhD | June 29, 2016
Chief Science Officer, ETR

POTUS was there. FLOTUS was there. Joe Biden and Oprah were there, along with Amy Poehler and Gloria Steinem.

And so was ETR.

Earlier this month, the White House and partners put on the United State of Women Summit. I had the privilege of speaking there on a panel about women and HIV sponsored by the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. The summit focused on health and wellness, economic empowerment, educational opportunity, violence against women, entrepreneurship and innovation, and leadership and civic engagement.

By Marcia Quackenbush, MS, MFT, MCHES | June 27, 2016
Senior Editor, ETR

The entire month of June is celebrated the world over as LGBTQ Pride month. This year, I started the celebration June 6 in my hometown of Santa Cruz, California. A few hundred marchers walked about a quarter of a mile along our downtown avenue, cheered on by neighbors and friends.

There were plenty of families and kids, dogs, bubbles, fairy wings and rainbow-themed accessories. The parade was over in 45 minutes. It was lovely and low-key. My wife and I talked about the easy-going vibe of the festival. The LGBTQ community achieved nationally recognized marriage equality in 2015, and now, in 2016, the fire and fury seemed to have quieted down.

And then Orlando happened.

By Pamela Anderson, PhD, & Marcia Quackenbush, MS, MFT, MCHES  | June 22, 2016
Senior Research Associate & Senior Editor, ETR

Originally published at EdSurge.

Teens, tweens and even younger kids are on smartphones, tablets and computers a lot. Of course, tech can be a force for good. Parents, educators and youth themselves report many benefits from the presence of technology in young people’s lives—connecting with family and friends, sharing experiences with distant peers, learning, being entertained and more.

By ETR | June 17, 2016

It’s summertime. That means the 2016 Kirby Summer Interns have joined ETR’s team. They’ll be contributing to some of the research we’re doing—gathering and analyzing data, and co-authoring an original contribution to the professional literature. We’re thrilled to have them on board!

Melissa Donze is pursuing an MPH program at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, emphasizing Health Promotion Research and Practice. Emily Waterman is a PhD student at Penn State in the Human Development and Family Studies department.

Both bring a wealth of understanding and experience to their internships, and we’re looking forward to a lively exchange of ideas while they’re here.

By Marcia Quackenbush, MS, MFT, MCHES | June 15, 2016
Senior Editor, ETR

Our nation has been engaged in a vital dialogue over the past couple of weeks about sexual violence. The so-called “Stanford rape case” has people talking about risk, responsibility and consequences. It has also shined a light on some of the particular issues related to sexual violence on college campuses.

This seemed like a good moment to take a look at some past posts from the ETR blog addressing the prevention of sexual violence.

By ETR | June 13, 2016

Like others all around the world, we are stunned and devastated by this past weekend’s events in Orlando.

We stand with the people of Orlando and the LGBTQ community there. We stand with LGBTQ communities across the nation, and with all who cherish freedom, liberty and justice.

Our hearts are broken, but our will is undeterred. Peace to Orlando. Peace to us all.

By BA Laris, MPH | June 9, 2016
Research Associate, ETR

How do we keep our sanity at work? How many times have you heard that question?

How do we provide the best services and products possible? How do we meet the needs of our clients and customers? Our co-workers, our supervisors? Our Board of Directors and funders? How do we do all this and still maintain a healthy family and social life?

Yes. I admit it. I use my “out of the office” message regularly!

The first week of June every year, I spend seven days on my bicycle, riding with over 2,000 other cyclists. We travel the 545 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles as part of AIDS Lifecycle. We raise money and awareness in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

By Amy Peterson, MSc | June 6, 2016
Project Coordinator, ETR

A few weeks ago I attended a symposium on the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing in London. The symposium marked the launch of the third and most comprehensive report the Commission has produced on the state of global adolescent health.

With over 1.8 billion young people aged 10-24 years old in the world, the promotion of healthy adolescents could have huge benefits to social and economic outcomes globally. Yet, historically, adolescents have largely been left out. They’ve lacked representation in global health indicators and a voice in the conversation about their own health and well-being.

The Lancet Commission represents a shift in the way we frame adolescent health. It elevates the importance of social determinants of health and young people's right to participate in the health discourse.

This Commission resonates and aligns with ETR’s work in the area of adolescent health, particularly sexual and reproductive health. In the report, as in ETR’s work, social determinants and neurodevelopment play a significant role in the discussion.

By Donald Powell, MHS | June 6, 2016
Senior Director of Policy & Development, Exponents

When I was first asked to prepare something to commemorate National Caribbean-American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, I jumped at the opportunity. After all, writing has always been my primary way to educate, process emotions and create.

But as I sat at my computer, I began to feel a little apprehensive. As an African American man with southern origins, I started to second guess my right to attempt this endeavor. Was I the person to speak to this commemoration?

I have worked as an HIV preventionist for more than two decades. In that time, I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside several powerful men and women of Caribbean descent. They have transformed and enhanced my understanding of how the intersection of ethnicity, HIV, gender identity and sexual orientation often plays out in Caribbean communities, and in other Black American communities as well. So I speak today to honor the achievements of this community and what I have learned from them.