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RHEY News & Tools:
Engaging Young Men in
Teen Pregnancy Prevention
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Dear Colleagues,
As we strive to reduce teen pregnancy in diverse communities, we recognize that young men's participation in sexual and reproductive health education and services is an essential component of that effort. This issue of RHEY News & Tools focuses on helping you and your community partners build capacity to engage young men in teen pregnancy prevention programs and attract them to clinical services that are delivered with understanding and respect for their unique needs and gender and cultural strengths.
Our featured articles and reports highlight the influence of neighborhood context on young men's health, share lessons learned from recruitment and training of male peer educators, and present best practices from pregnancy prevention programs that have successfully involved males.
We highlight two exemplary programs created for young men: a multi-session health education program aimed at preventing teen pregnancy, HIV, and STDs, and a clinic-based, comprehensive approach to engaging young men in accessing health information and clinical and supportive services. Both programs promote healthy concepts of masculinity and have demonstrated positive results serving diverse youth and working collaboratively in the communities in which they are based.
A male friendliness assessment tool developed by the Youth First Program of the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, and a website section addressing young men's questions about health, round out the collection for this issue.
We hope this selection of resources will help you develop and strengthen a comprehensive approach for reaching the diverse young males in your community with prevention programs and clinical services that meet their unique sexual, reproductive, and emotional health needs.
In the spirit of collaboration,
Myriam Hernandez Jennings
JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc.
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Featured Articles 
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Jacqueline B. Cupples, Ann P. Zukoski, and Tatiana Dierwechter, Health Promotion Practice. May 2010, Vol. 11, Suppl. 1, 19S-25S
The authors describe lessons learned about the selection, development, and contributions of young male health educators in a community-based peer-to-peer sexual health program for young men.
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Laura D. Lindberg and Mark Orr, Am J Public Health. 2011 February; 101(2): 271-274
This analysis linking data at the individual and community levels showed that the socioeconomic status of communities influenced the sexual and reproductive health of the young men in these communities. The findings point to the importance of considering neighborhood context when addressing young men's sexual and reproductive health behaviors.
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Exemplary Programs
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New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH)/Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC)
The Young Men's Clinic (YMC), one of the best known clinics for males in the country, offers low-cost, high-quality, "male-friendly" health services for all men 13-35 years of age, with a focus on sexual and reproductive health. Serving a diverse population primarily from Washington Heights, Harlem, and the Bronx, the YMC offers a wide array of services, including routine medical care, STI and HIV testing, counseling, health information, free condoms, and referrals for employment, educational, vocational, health, and social services.
To learn more about the YMC, visit their website. You can also hear a discussion on the program with Dr. David Bell, the Medical Director of the YMC, by following this link.
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| Wise Guys
Family Life Education Services, Children's Home Society of NC; Greensboro, NC
Wise Guys is an evaluated multi-session teen pregnancy prevention program for young males. Its aim is to prevent adolescent pregnancy by teaching self-responsibility in the areas of sexual development, decision-making, and relationships. Implemented with diverse groups of males in a variety of settings, Wise Guys emphasizes the ways in which concepts of masculinity and manhood affect how teenage males approach relationships and sexual decision making, with the broad goals of redefining male strength and transforming male culture.
To learn more about Wise Guys, visit their website. You can also hear a discussion on the program with Rick Brown, the Director of Program Expansion, by following this link.
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Featured Website
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The Man Cave
Safe Teens, Pennsylvania Department of Health
This section of the Safe Teens website, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Health, provides information and answers young men's questions about sex, condoms, hormonal and emergency contraception, alcohol use, and men's body image.
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Featured Tool
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Youth First, Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy
Try now -- Use this assessment tool with community partners to assess readiness for engaging young men and help create an action plan to strengthen capacity to serve their reproductive health needs.
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Also of Interest
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This classic report by the Urban Institute reviewed 24 community-based teen pregnancy prevention programs that successfully involved males using different approaches and agency settings. See especially Chapter 4, which extracts lessons learned, elements of success, and essential approaches that can be applied by today's TPP programs to attract and engage a critical mass of young male participants.
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"Most guys go into sexual and reproductive health visits thinking that they're going to be thought negatively of, and having them know that they're going to be approached with respect and dignity...changes how they approach their health."
-- Dr. David Bell, Medical Director, Young Men's Clinic
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 JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. We welcome your feedback at RHEY@jsi.com
Many thanks to our reviewers and advisors:
David L. Bell, MD, MPH, Medical Director, The Young Men's Clinic, NYPH/CUMC
Dana Becker, Spartanburg Community Specialist, South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
* The full text of this article is subject to copyright restrictions. Access to the complete article may be possible through your agency, institution, or university library.
RHEY News & Tools is published by JSI Research & Training Institute's Working with Diverse Communities Component, part of the Teenage Pregnancy Prevention: Integrating Services, Programs, and Strategies Through Community-wide Initiatives project, funded by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH), Office of Adolescent Health (OAH)/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the President's Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative (TPPI).
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