Resource Library

This webinar, recorded August 20, 2020, features a live panel discussion on how to use data to measure social capital and build connections for vulnerable youth. 

This brief was developed as part of a portfolio of youth-focused projects on sexual risk avoidance and cessation sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The brief presents two initial, complementary conceptual models—one for sexual risk avoidance and a second for sexual risk cessation—that aim to guide efforts to prevent youth risk behaviors and promote optimal health. The models identify a range of factors that research shows may influence youth decision making, sexual behavior, and related outcomes. These influencing factors occur at the environmental, interpersonal, or individual level, and many can be modified through intervention. To this end, the models may be used to guide and support efforts to develop and refine programs, tailor educational messages to youth, and empower parents and other adults to help youth avoid or cease sexual and non-sexual risk behaviors. In particular, the sexual risk cessation conceptual model is supporting the development of a sexual risk cessation program model and related supplemental curriculum module, intended to help sexually-experienced youth avoid sexual activity in the future.

Beginning in FY2015, all Runaway and Homeless Youth Program grantees were required to begin using HMIS, operated by their local U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-funded Continuum of Care, or CoC, for all data reporting to the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB). FYSB refers to the expanded system as RHY-HMIS. These frequently asked questions should aid in that reporting.