APP Connect, November 2021
APP Connect, November 2021 November 16, 2021 | Volume 6 | No. 3
Table Of Contents
- APP Corner
- Welcome New Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (APP) Grantees!
- Program Highlights
- Grantee Spotlight
- A Culturally Grounded, Intergenerational Approach to Preventing Teen Pregnancy
- GetCheckedDC’s innovative work to increase home testing for STDs and HIV/AIDS among local school students
- Youth-focused Resources
APP Corner
We’re grateful for this opportunity to reach out to all our Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (APP) program grantees and reinforce our commitment to help foster your success in providing effective APP programming to help prepare youth for a bright future.
Just one of the mechanisms through which we do this is the annual APP Grantee Conference, this year themed Creating Diamonds During Times of Great Pressure. We were pleased to see over 900 attendees join us virtually this past June to enjoy content that covered myriad topics on PREP and SRAE programming. Presenters delivered 37 different sessions along with six Research & Evaluation Spotlights and two Innovation Spotlights. One high point was the Youth Plenary panel featuring three youth who are receiving APP programming. Read the article to see how they’re doing. Materials from the 2021 APP Grantee Conference will soon be available on The Exchange Resource Library. You’ll be happy to know that we’re currently anticipating a LIVE APP conference in 2022 to be hosted in Atlanta which will include a virtual format as well. There are a lot of unknowns and much work to be done, but we are optimistic.
These last few months have been quite busy at the APP virtual offices as we continue to work with our T&TA partners to develop and deliver services and resources to strengthen our program. We have resumed site visits, albeit in a virtual setting, which are important steps in assuring the integrity of APP programming. Numerous programmatic resources have been developed and added to The Exchange — APP’s destination website for grantees — including the Working with Parents of Teens tip sheet, webinars on Continuous Quality Improvement and Advancing Racial Equity, and many more. The We Think Twice campaign has experienced amazing growth with steady increases in our followers and youth engagement — overall, 10 times above industry standard — in our content, contests, and social conversations. Speaking of youth engagement, have you seen our Ask the Experts Q&A session with Dr. Fauci yet? Definitely take a look .
During the summer we completed grant reviews for five of the seven grant programs, almost simultaneously, with new grant awards having been announced in September. And, we’ve also welcomed several new Project Officers to the team.
As we continue navigate the new norm due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and anxiously await the end of this challenging chapter in history, we’d like to offer a personal Thank You to all those who contribute to the mission of the APP program. Thank you for your strength, dedication, and perseverance!
This edition of the APP Connect eNewsletter has some great highlights, spotlights, and news about APP, our partners, and grantees. I hope you enjoy the latest updates.
The APP Team
Welcome New Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (APP) Grantees!
On behalf of the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (APP) Program, we would like to extend a warm welcome to all our new grantees. We’re looking forward to another successful year of preventing adolescent pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, non-marital sexual activity, and other risky behaviors, while preparing youth for adulthood. As an APP grantee, you have access to a library of resources to support and enhance your APP program through The Exchange , your one-stop shop for SRAE and PREP resources. The site hosts extensive APP content, especially in our Resource Gallery, which offers over 170 resources to help you tackle challenges and explore new topics, such as youth engagement or health equity. Take a moment to peruse these in our Grantee Welcome Package and jumpstart your program activities today. Visit FYSB’s Grant Awards page to see all our grantees.
Program Highlights
Youth Plenary Participants Continue to Shine!
It’s only been a few months since the conference, but we were wondering what the Youth Plenary participants were up to lately. Fortunately, we were able to catch up with a few of them. As expected, they’re busy with school, activities, and figuring out how to change their world one goal at a time.
Jarienne Jackson (Mississippi, State SRAE), a cheer aficionado, is officially a junior and looking forward to finishing the year strong. She’s also excited to see her friends all dressed up for prom and making memories with her family. When asked about what she learned from the Youth Panel, Jarienne recalled the diversity of the group —"everyone was from everywhere, yet everyone was similar…because we all need someone in our lives that we can talk to.” Now that fall is here, Jarienne is excited about cheering at basketball games and figuring out what she wants to be in the future—she’s taking a college and career readiness class to help with the process! In the meantime, she’s focused on becoming a better athlete and a better version of herself.
Mansa Lightfoot-Muhammad Tavernier (Florida, CPREP) is looking forward to a quick recovery from a broken clavicle and spending time with family and friends in sweater weather! Rest assured, a broken clavicle hasn’t slowed Mansa down. In his free time, Mansa tutors student-athletes to help ensure their GPAs meet the requirement to continue playing sports. Once his collarbone heals, you’ll be able to find Mansa on the soccer field with his team. One goal for the future? Mansa is working hard to get A's this semester. He’s also helping manage his soccer team so they can qualify for an important league cup this season. Good luck, Mansa!
Remember Justyn Jaey Deseo Dela Cruz (Texas, State SRAE)? He’s as focused as ever on becoming a doctor. Justyn hopes to complete his first semester of college by the end of 2021. Although he is busy with school, Justyn hopes to find time in his schedule to give back to his community through volunteering. He’s also working toward completing prerequisites for medical school.
On behalf of the APP Program, please join us in wishing these youth a wonderful and productive school year. May they continue to be examples of diamonds that shine in their communities!
Grantee Spotlight
A Culturally Grounded, Intergenerational Approach to Preventing Teen Pregnancy
Parents are one of the most significant influences on their adolescents’ decisions around sex. The Asdzáán Be’eena’ Program (Ahs-d-zah-nn Beh-ee-nah), a Navajo term meaning Female Pathways, is designed to harness the critical role parents play in youth decision making by engaging young, female adolescents and their female caregivers in a teen pregnancy and substance use prevention program. Developed in partnership with the Navajo Nation, Asdzáán Be’eena’ harnesses Native cultural strengths to promote harmony and health among Native girls.
Based on decades of research identifying a need for primary prevention and culturally centered approaches to promote the health and wellbeing of Native families, the Center for American Indian Health developed the Asdzáán Be’eena Program in partnership with the Navajo Nation in 2017. The program is committed to promoting protective factors among young adolescent Native girls through sessions delivered in a mixed format consisting of:
- Individual dyad lessons (youth, caregiver, and facilitator) to encourage parent-youth relationships and family values, and
- Group lessons (groups of youth, caregivers, and two facilitators) to promote positive peer groups, cultural and community connectedness, and social support for both youth and their caregivers.
By engaging parents and peers together, we hypothesize the impacts of Asdzáán Be’eena’ will be long-lasting and promote a healthy transition for girls throughout adolescence and young adulthood.
The program emphasizes skills related to communication including peer pressure and bullying. Taught to incorporate concepts from the Navajo creation story and the Navajo girls’ coming of age ceremony, it teaches resilience and respect through a cultural lens and also provides information about puberty so parents and girls are both prepared for this pivotal moment in a girls’ life. Lessons are didactic and include a variety of activities to get and keep youth and caregivers engaged. For example, youth and caregivers complete an exercise in which they walk towards each other, pretending they have different relationships with each other (e.g., relative, stranger, friend). Stopping when they feel any closer would violate their personal space, the youth and caregiver discuss the importance of boundary setting in relationships. Parents have said this activity helped them understand what their daughters knew and felt about their own personal space and spurred a conversation about “good touch and bad touch”.
The Center for American Indian Health is part of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (GD-SRAE grantee) in Baltimore, MD and is committed to work in partnership with tribal communities to design public health programs that raise the health status, self-sufficiency, and health leadership of Native people to the highest possible level.
The SRAE grant supports the implementation and evaluation of the Asdzáán Be’eena’ program on the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation is home to ~330,000 people and covers an area of 27,413 square miles in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. The Asdzáán Be’eena’ program is being implemented in two rural areas: Tuba City and Chinle, AZ by Navajo family health coaches. Prior to the current SRAE trial, Asdzáán Be’eena’ was evaluated through a pre-/post-trial with 60 dyads. Results indicated the program significantly improved girls’ psychosocial health, parent-child relationship, and connection to culture while reducing their intention to have sex while a teenager. Results also show caregivers improved their parenting self-efficacy and cultural connection during the program. 1Youth feedback thus far indicates the program is teaching them knowledge and skills that they will use throughout their life: “I like it because it helps me to better know who I am,” and, “...now I know how to stand up for people.” Caregivers have also reported the program has taught them important things: “I learned my support for my daughter is lacking and it needs to be improved through special bonding time,” and, “The program teaches us and reminds us to respect ourselves and who we represent.”
We are excited to continue to serve youth and families with this program and look forward to sharing results from this trial over the next few years.
1 Chambers, R. A., Patel, H., Richards, J., Begay, J., Littlepage, S., Begay, M., Sheppard, L., Nelson, D., Masten, K., Mitchell, K., Kee, C., Barlow, A., & Tingey, L. (Accepted/In press). Feasibility, Acceptability, and Preliminary Impact of Asdzáán Be'eená: An Intergenerational, Strength-Based, and Culturally Grounded Program to Improve the Health of Navajo Families. Family and Community Health, [0000302]. https://doi.org/10.1097/FCH.0000000000000302
GetCheckedDC’s innovative work to increase home testing for STDs and HIV/AIDS among local school students
GetCheckedDC is a program available through the Washington, DC Department of Health (DC Health), a State PREP grantee, that provides residents with confidential, convenient testing for both HIV and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Launched in June of 2020, the program aims to provide access to testing services in a new way as both testing sites and patients adjusted to changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
GetCheckedDC’s approach allows DC residents to request the option that works best for them. At-home HIV test kits include instructions and a test device that can be self-administered and resulted at home. Home-based STD test kits can be requested for up to three tests sites (urine, pharyngeal, and rectal) and self-collected specimens are mailed back to a lab for processing. The walk-in HIV and STD testing component allows residents to seek testing at a participating lab site of their choice. The results of home-based STD tests and walk-in testing are made available to patients through secure, online portals and DC Health provides support to patients needing linkage to care and treatment.
All available test options are free, safe, and easy to use. The GetCheckedDC website provides residents with additional information about the program, how to interpret results, and additional resources. The availability of home-based and walk-in testing adds to an existing menu of services and programs available to keep DC’s residents safe and healthy.
Youth-focused Resources
We Think Twice Digital Campaign Continues to Grow and Engage Teens
The We Think Twice (WTT) campaign works with teens and for teens to develop impactful, evidence-driven digital content to inspire teens to make healthy decisions and set and reach goals.
Over the past year, WTT Instagram has featured several contests and giveaways including, the Create Your Future National Arts Contest and the Confidence Chronicles Poetry Contest . These challenges were developed to harness teens’ creativity and inspire resilience throughout the year. Check out the Poetry Contest winners . In total, 10 youth judges were recruited to score over 170 submissions across both contests! The WTT Instagram also ran a Book Lover’s Day Giveaway in August, prompting teens to comment on their favorite books. This 24-hour giveaway resulted in over 100 book suggestions that will be used in future products across WTT platforms.
The WTT website hosts valuable resources for teens, whether they are looking for mental health facts , a template for creating their first resume , or tools for developing healthy relationships . In July, five young adults were recruited to participate in the Our Goals, Our Lives motivational video series, a project that spotlights real stories from young people (aged 18-20) who have encountered and overcome challenges to achieve their goals. The first video in the series will be published on the WTT website in November and will be available for sharing across YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
We hope that you will encourage teens in your community to get involved by following on Instagram @WeThinkTwice and becoming a WTT Insider !