Introduction
The Sexual Risk Avoidance Education National Evaluation (SRAENE) seeks to understand how programs can promote youth self-regulation, including exploring how co-regulation can support that outcome in Sexual Risk Avoidance Education (SRAE) programs. SRAENE is a federally funded evaluation of SRAE programs funded by the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). SRAENE included the Co-Regulation Implementation Study, which is focused on teaching SRAE facilitators co-regulation skills and supporting facilitators to use the skills when delivering SRAE programs.
Purpose
The Co-Regulation Implementation Study tested a theory that teaching SRAE facilitators co-regulation skills—including fostering warm and responsive relationships with youth, creating a safe and supportive classroom environment, and coaching and modeling self-regulation skills—has the potential to improve facilitation, which will contribute to improvements in youth proximal outcomes. As part of the study, Mathematica conducted focus groups to collect information on youth’s perspectives and to understand how youth experienced SRAE programming. This brief presents results from the youth focus groups. The primary audience includes administrators and practitioners of SRAE and related youth programming to inform planning and service delivery as well as future evaluations.
Key Findings and Highlights
Youth described how facilitators’ use of the co-regulation strategies helped foster trusted relationships with their facilitators, create a positive classroom environment, develop their own self-regulation skills, and generate deeper engagement in SRAE program content.
- Youth said the facilitator influenced the overall tone and climate of the classroom.
- Youth felt they had positive relationships with their facilitators.
- Youth learned self-regulation skills to implement inside and outside the classroom.
- Youth voice was an invaluable asset for understanding their experiences in the classroom and the ways that co-regulation augmented facilitators’ skills.
Methods
Mathematica trained facilitators to use a set of co-regulation strategies when delivering their SRAE programming and supported them as they used the strategies. Nine SRAE grantees providing programming in high schools took part in the study during the 2022—2023 school year. The SRAENE team conducted 16 focus groups with 83 high-school aged youth across eight of the grantee program sites participating in the study.
Citation
O’Callahan, C., L. Tingey, and H. Zaveri. (2023). Incorporating Youth Voice. OPRE Report 2023-276, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.