Planeando Tu Vida: sex and family life education: fundamentals of development, implementation, and evaluation.

PIP: Misinformation about sexuality, reproduction, and contraception is widespread among Mexican adolescents and existing sex education programs have been limited in both scope and availability. To address this situation, the Instituto Mexicano de Investigacion de Familia y Poblacion (IMIFAP) designed a comprehensive sex education program based on data gathered in a 1986 diagnostic survey of 865 adolescents 12-19 years of age and interviews with 365 pregnant adolescents. As part of this preliminary research, one group of teens was exposed to a traditional sex education course while another participated in a program that used participatory learning techniques and emphasized communication skills, assertiveness training, value clarification, peer support, and decision making processes. The latter, more effective approach served as the basis for design of a course, Planeando Tu Vida. Operational evaluations of this course conducted at completion and four and eight months later indicated significant increases in knowledge about contraception, but no effect on age at first intercourse. On the other hand, adolescent males who took the course before onset of sexual activity were significantly more likely to use contraceptives at first intercourse than those in traditional courses. This finding underscores the importance of early initiation of sex education programs. To date, the curriculum has been used in over 100 public and private schools, reaching more than 30,000 adolescents. IMIFAP has since developed more than 70 additional health education course guides aimed at children from preschool through high school, all of which emphasize a participatory approach to learning.^ieng