The Relationship Smarts Plus curriculum contains 13 lessons regarding identity, principles of healthy dating, and communication skills. Lessons also include warning signs of abusive relationship and address the issue of intimate partner violence. At its core, the curriculum is built to teach youth how to realistically assess their real and potential dating relationships before making commitments or engaging in behaviors that may lead to unintentional commitments. This is a useful curriculum for educators seeking to engage a teen audience with research-informed activities in an area where teens have few sources of reputable information.
Non-resident fathers' compliance with child support agreements is low. An estimated 50% of fathers never pay any formal support to their co-parents (Stykes, Manning, & Brown, 2013). Responsible fatherhood programs have been developed as an alternative to incarceration to provide parenting and other skills to fathers in the hopes of increasing their payment compliance. This study adds to the sparse literature on the evaluation of responsible fatherhood programs by quantitatively examining the role of hope, parenting role salience, and parenting skills in predicting changes in child support compliance attitudes. The sample was drawn from participants in community-based responsible fatherhood programs. Results indicated that as fathers reported greater improvements in parenting skills and hope for the future, they also reported greater intentions to comply with child support agreements. Implications for fatherhood educational program design and implementation are discussed.
AbstractObjectiveThe main aim of the study was to assess whether and how the gender composition of classrooms affect learning outcomes as reported by youth participants in youth relationship education (YRE) classes.BackgroundAlthough gender has been explored as a moderator of relationship education outcomes, the influences of the gender composition of the YRE setting on outcomes has not been tested. Youth in sex education settings frequently cite embarrassment and anxiety about discussing sensitive topics among other genders. Despite reporting anxiety, youth in several studies report benefits of participating in sex education in mixed‐gender settings. Although sex education differs in purpose from YRE, similar dynamics may influence the learning outcomes of YRE. Thus, it is important for YRE researchers to replicate the study of gender composition that has been carried out in other educational settings.MethodsRepeated‐measure analyses of variance were conducted on data from a community‐based sample of 4,597 YRE participants to test for interaction effects of time by classroom gender balance ratio on each of the outcome variables.ResultsResults suggest that for the majority of learning outcomes, young women benefit from YRE regardless of the gender composition of the classroom. Young men, however, appear to report greater changes in skills at posttest when they are in balanced or predominantly young women (>55% identifying as female) classrooms, with one exception for young men 15 years of age and younger.ImplicationsThese results, taken in concert with results from other studies of gender composition, suggest that young men benefit from the enhanced opportunity for dialogue with young women in the YRE educational setting.
In recent years, there have been increasing calls to intentionally center diversity, equity, and inclusion within positive youth development programs. True Leaders: Culture, Power and Justice is a 4-H curriculum designed to engage young people in understanding and applying social justice concepts with the ultimate aim of nurturing their sense of self-efficacy as they work to find solutions to pressing social issues. The True Leaders curriculum is shaped by the Five Cs of positive youth development—confidence, competence, connection, caring, and character—and a social justice youth development framework. Each lesson is grounded in the critical experiential learning model, which seeks to move participants through a process of hands-on learning about social justice concepts, critical reflection, and, ultimately, collective action. The True Leaders curriculum is intended for use with middle and high school-aged youth.
The growing mental health concerns during COVID-19, particularly among rural residents, is a public health emergency. Rural residents are at an elevated risk, as rurality has been associated with various disparities, including lower accessibility to mental health services. Maryland Rural Opioid Technical Assistance (ROTA; Maryland Extension) aimed to address this issue by delivering evidence-based programs on opioid misuse and mental health to rural community members and practitioners throughout Maryland when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. and all research activities had to transition to the virtual setting. The current study provides an overview of the implementation process of the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) program and reports the findings from the evaluation efforts. Participants (N = 398) completed a one-time online survey and answered open-ended questions, reporting high satisfaction rates and positive experiences with the virtual delivery of the program. Results suggested that the virtual format was still effective in program content delivery and that virtual delivery of evidence-based programs may be an opportune strategy to reach more rural residents. Recommendations for future research and practice efforts include building sustainable partnerships with local community organizations and considering rurality and prolonged-pandemic factors for effective program implementation.
