Be Proud! Be Responsible!
Be Proud! Be Responsible! An Evidence-Based Intervention to Empower Youth to Reduce Their Risk of HIV is a multi-media, 6-module curriculum that provides adolescents with the knowledge, motivation and skills to change their behaviors in ways that will reduce their risk of contracting HIV.
| Category | Program Features |
|---|---|
| Setting | School / Community based |
| Program Length | 6 hours/year | 1 year 6 sessions total |
| Age Group | Ages 14–18 |
| Look Inside |
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Overview | Description | Population | Author
Overview
To reduce their risk of HIV through behavioral change, adolescents not only need information on their perception of personal vulnerability, but also skills and confidence in their ability to act safely. Be Proud! Be Responsible! is a multi-media, 6-module curriculum that provides adolescents with the knowledge, motivation and skills to change their behaviors in ways that will reduce their risk of contracting HIV. Although not specifically pregnancy prevention oriented, many of the communication and condom skills taught will also help participants avoid unintended pregnancy and other STDs.
Downloadable Summary Sheet >>
Description
Be Proud! Be Responsible! is comprised of a series of fun and interactive learning experiences designed to increase participation and enhance learning. Activities include educational videos, trigger films, role plays, condom demonstrations and other exercises. Most activities are brief, lasting no more than 20 minutes.
The goals of the program are to:
- Help young people change behaviors that place them at risk for HIV.
- Delay the initiation of sex among sexually inexperienced youth.
- Reduce unprotected sex among sexually active youth.
- Help young people make proud and responsible decisions about their sexual behaviors.
As a result of participating in Be Proud! Be Responsible! students will be able to:
- Increase their knowledge about HIV, AIDS and risk behaviors.
- Believe in the value of safer sex and abstinence.
- Have confidence in their ability to negotiate safer sex and use condoms correctly.
- Be able to use condoms and negotiate sexual situations.
- Intend to practice safer sex.
- Reduce sexual risk behaviors.
- Take pride in and responsibility for choosing responsible sexual behaviors.
Population Served & Setting
The curriculum was designed to be used with small groups ranging from 6 to 12 participants, but has been implemented in recent years in settings with larger numbers of participants. It can be implemented in various community settings, including schools and youth-serving agencies.
About the Authors
Loretta Sweet Jemmott, PhD, RN, FAAN, is one of the nation’s foremost researchers in the field of HIV/AIDS, STD and pregnancy prevention, with a consistent track record of developing evidence-based sexual risk-reduction interventions. As an expert in health promotion research, she has led the nation in understanding the psychological determinants for reducing risk-related behaviors and how best to facilitate and promote positive changes in health behaviors. Her research is devoted to designing and evaluating theory-driven, culturally competent sexual risk-reduction behavioral interventions with various populations across the globe.
An outstanding translational researcher, Dr. Jemmott’s work has had global impact and changed public policy. She has partnered with community-based organizations, including churches, clinics, barbershops and schools, and transformed her NIH-funded evidence-based research outcomes for use in real-world settings. She has presented her research to the U.S. Congress and at the NIH Consensus Development Conference on Interventions to Reduce HIV Risk Behaviors. Dr. Jemmott has received numerous awards for her significant contributions to the field of HIV/STD and pregnancy prevention research, including the U.S. Congressional Merit Award, Sigma Theta Tau National Honor Society’s Episteme Award and Hall of Fame Award, and election to membership in the Institute of Medicine, an honor accorded to very few nurses.
John B. Jemmott III, PhD, received his PhD in psychology from the Department of Psychology and Social Relations at Harvard University. He holds joint faculty appointments at the University of Pennsylvania as the Kenneth B. Clark Professor of Communication in the Annenberg School for Communication, and as Professor of Communication in Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Center for Health Behavior and Communication Research at the Annenberg School for Communication.
Dr. Jemmott is a Fellow of the Association of Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association and the Society for Behavioral Medicine. He has published more than 100 articles and book chapters, and has received numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health to conduct research designed to develop and test theory-based, contextually appropriate HIV/STD risk-reduction interventions for a variety of populations in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa.
Konstance A. McCaffree, PhD, CSE is a certified sexuality educator and adjunct professor in the Center for Education Human Sexuality Program at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania. As a classroom teacher in the public schools, she has taught human sexuality to both elementary and secondary students for over 35 years. Her professional association work includes serving on the Board of Directors of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS), as President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS) and as an officer in the American Association of Sexuality Education, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT). She conducts workshops nationwide to help educators improve their skills in teaching sexuality education. She also conducts programs for parents, churches and community organizations to enhance their knowledge and skills in dealing with the sexuality of children and teenagers.
In recent years, Dr. McCaffree has developed curricula and implemented training programs for educators and other health professionals in South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria and the Philippines. For the past 10 years she has trained teachers and professors to implement a curriculum she developed in coordination with local educators throughout the country of Nigeria. She has used her expertise to develop training for curricula to prevent HIV/AIDS, unplanned pregnancy, and other health and social issues among children, teenagers and adults.
Length | Elements | Staffing | Notification
Length of Program
The curriculum has 6 hours of content divided into six 50-minute modules. It can be implemented in six sessions of 50 minutes each or in three 1-hour-and-40-minute sessions. In community settings, it can be implemented in a 2-day format (2.5 hours each day), a 6-day format (50 minutes each day) or on a single day (Saturday) for approximately 5 hours, plus time for serving lunch and snacks.
Program Elements
Core intervention materials include:
- Facilitator Curriculum
- Activity Set (cards, handouts, posters)
- Curriculum DVDs
- The Hard Way
- The Subject Is: HIV (Safer Sex)
- Nicole's Choice
- Wrap It Up & Condom Use Animation
- Student Workbooks (classroom set of 30)
The Be Proud, Be Responsible implementation set includes the facilitator's guide, activity set, a classroom set of 30 student workbooks and 4 DVDs. The curriculum requires the use of a monitor with DVD capabilities.
Student workbooks are recommended for every student. Additional workbook sets of 5 and 30 are available.
An optional LGBTQ Supplement is also available from ETR. It includes a lesson that can be taught before implementing the intervention as well as suggestions for acceptable adaptations to make evidence-based programs more inclusive of LGBTQ youth.
Staffing Requirements
This curriculum is designed to be taught by classroom teachers or family life educators. Educators interested in implementing this program should be skilled in using interactive teaching methods and guiding group discussions, and should be comfortable with the program content.
It is highly recommended that educators who plan to teach Be Proud! Be Responsible! receive research-based professional development to prepare them to effectively implement and replicate the curriculum with fidelity for the intended target group. Training on Be Proud! Be Responsible! is available through ETR's Professional Learning Services.
Parent/Guardian Notification
It is essential to inform parents and guardians regarding the nature and scheduling of this or any sexual health education program. Prior to implementation of the curriculum, families should receive written notice describing the goals of Be Proud! Be Responsible! and the nature of the content to be covered. Parents also should be given an opportunity to view the curriculum and related materials if they wish. The vast majority of parents want their children to receive appropriate instruction and be given the information and skills they need to protect their sexual health, but parents/guardians also must be allowed the chance to opt out or exclude their children from participating in the program, if they wish.
Theory | Logic Model | Evidence Summary | References
Theory
When teaching adolescents strategies to reduce their risk for HIV, one must go beyond simply giving students correct information. Instructors must also build students’ perceptions of vulnerability and bolster positive attitudes and outcome expectancies while building self-efficacy and skills to negotiate and practice safer sex and/or abstinence.
Logic Model
The program logic model can be found here:
Logic Model (pdf)
Evidence Summary
Research Design
In the original study (Jemmott, Jemmott and Fong, 1992), a randomized control trial was conducted to test the effects of the Be Proud! Be Responsible! (BPBR) intervention. In the research study, the 5-hour curriculum was implemented in a small group setting with African-American male adolescents on two Saturdays in a local school in Trenton, New Jersey. The participants were 157 African-American male adolescents with a mean age of 14.6 years. (S.D. = 1.66), who were recruited from a local medical clinic (44%), high school (32%) and YMCA (24%).Participants were stratified by age and randomly assigned to receive one of two curricula: Be Proud! Be Responsible! or a career development intervention.
Data Gathering
The participants completed questionnaires before, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention. Of the original 157 participants, 98% attended the 3-month follow up from the BPBR intervention and 93% of the control intervention attendees returned. The primary outcome was an index of risky sexual behaviors in the previous 3 months, which included sexual intercourse frequency, multiple partners, number of sex partners involved with other men, consistent condom use, and heterosexual anal sexual intercourse.
Findings
The participants who received the Be Proud! Be Responsible! intervention reported significantly less sexual risk behavior, based on the risky sex scale at 3-month follow-up (p < .01). They also reported fewer number of partners (p < .003). The BPBR intervention also significantly reduced sexual intercourse frequency (p < .008), compared to the control group. BPBR participants also reported fewer female sex partners involved with other men (p < .05), and fewer days not using a condom during sex (p < .003). In addition, adolescents in the intervention group were significantly less likely to report engaging in heterosexual anal sex (p < .02) than adolescents in the comparison group at the 3-month follow-up.
The BPBR intervention effect was greatest with female facilitators, suggesting facilitator gender can moderate intervention efficacy. The adolescents who received the BPBR intervention believed more strongly that practicing abstinence would prevent pregnancy, STDs and AIDS (p < .0001, p=.04, p=.04), expressed less favorable attitudes toward sexual intercourse (p < .0001, p < .0001, p< .0001), and reported weaker intentions of having sexual intercourse over the next three months (F(1, 144) = 7.58) than did those in the control group. BPBR participants also scored significantly higher in HIV risk-reduction knowledge (p < .0003) compared to the control group.
References
General Adaptation Guidance | Fidelity Log | Pre/Post Tests | Policy
Adaptation Guidance
ETR is a leader in developing adaptation guidelines to enable professionals to adapt evidence-based intervention programs for implementation in underserved communities, while maintaining fidelity to the intervention's core components. ETR works with program developers to ensure that these tools are of the highest quality and meet the different needs of the field and end users, e.g., teachers, trainers, program mangers/staff, research teams, and funders.
See ETR’s General Adaptation Guidance
For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about program adaptations, please visit our Program Support Help Desk.
Read ETR's Adaptations Policy.
Fidelity Log
Click the link below for the log for Be Proud! Be Responsible! Fifth Edition.
Be Proud! Be Responsible! Facilitator Log Sheets (pdf)
Pre/Post Tests
Classroom teachers can use pre/post tests to examine whether short-term knowledge learning objectives have been met. A simple pretest-posttest assessment design can be used to measure pre-instruction levels and post-instruction changes in student learning. The sample pre-test provided here is from the research study and gathers demographic data on participants in addition to assessing attitudes and sexual health knowledge.
Your ability to detect student change using this survey may vary and can be affected by numerous factors (e.g., number and content of lessons students receive, student scores at pretest, student motivation and interest in topic and survey, etc.) Improvement between pretest and posttest can be viewed as supportive, but not definitive, evidence of the curriculum's impact on short-term knowledge learning objectives. A well-designed evaluation study (e.g., using a strong experimental design with a well-matched comparison group and adequate sample size) with more extensive measurement would be needed to provide stronger evidence of curriculum impact.
Be Proud! Be Responsible! Pre- and Post-Questionnaire (pdf)
Learn more about how ETR can help with your evaluation needs >>
Training of Educators (TOE)
For over 30 years, ETR has been building the capacity of community-based organizations, schools, school districts, and state, county and local agencies in all 50 states and 7 U.S. territories to implement and replicate evidenced-based programs (EBPs) to prevent teen pregnancy, STD/STI and HIV. Our nationally recognized training and research teams work in partnership with clients to customize training and technical assistance (TA) to address the needs of their agencies and funding requirements.
ETR’s Virtual Training of Educators (TOE) for Be Proud! Be Responsible! equips sexual health facilitators with the knowledge and skills necessary to implement the program with youth.
All trainings align with ETR’s distributive learning process, an interactive experience that takes place over time. Core to this research-based approach is the acquisition of knowledge and development of skills, followed by the implementation of the program and educator self-reflection. During this process, ETR trainers engage learners through teaching strategies, interactive activities, modeling and follow-up support.
Training Components
All of the following components are critical for skill development and implementation success. Make sure you can commit about 10 hours of total time to the training experience for program excellence!
- Priming Activities: Learn more about the theories that ground the curriculum and the research that highlights the program’s impact on the sexual health behaviors of youth. These activities, completed prior to Live Session 1, will help to get you acquainted with your program.
- Live Sessions: Most of the learning happens live. Over the course of three 2.5 hour sessions spread out over three weeks, our experienced trainers will take you through the curriculum and help develop skills necessary to deliver Be Proud, Be Responsible! The trainer will model best practices for implementation, build comfort with the subject matter, and tackle a variety of implementation challenges and strategies.
- Intersession Activities: Between each live session, guided intersession activities will help participants to keep thinking about their evidence-based program and it’s implementation to continue the learning.
- Practice Session: After the live sessions are over, it’s time to see what you know! A practice session, or teach-back, will be assigned to each participant and various opportunities for feedback will be provided.
- Follow-up Support: The training is only the beginning. We offer follow-up support for the first three months after training, including additional resources and check-ins via email.
Training Goal
Educators will have the knowledge, skills and confidence to effectively implement the program with youth.