Relationships Matter: Partnering to Prevent Unplanned Pregnancy

"Young adult relationships are both an important aspect of a youth's developmental processes as well as an influencing factor in development outcomes. Seldom are young people given information about how to successfully navigate the minefields of young adult relationships; make wise partner choices; learn how to avoid abusive, harmful relationships; and learn skills and strategies that contribute to the prevention of unplanned pregnancy..."

This report details the proceedings of a 2-day meeting held in August 2010 in response to recent policy opportunities in the United States that set the stage for collaboration between relationship education and pregnancy prevention practitioners. This meeting was co-hosted by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center, and the Innovation Center for Community & Youth Development. The purpose of the gathering was to expand the dialogue about relationship education and teen pregnancy prevention services by identifying: opportunities for collaboration between the fields; relevant research and promising practices; current policy and existing or projected funding opportunities; and effective strategies for reaching vulnerable youth with relationship education and pregnancy prevention messages.

An excerpt from the report follows:

"...In general, there is consensus that an effective pregnancy prevention strategy needs to address the romantic relationships of young people. However, accomplishing this is not straight forward. These conversations centered on five key themes and generated a set of strategic action areas to guide future work.

• Language matters: Effective communication lies at the heart of any collaborative effort; words have the power to attract or alienate potential allies. Program and policy leaders need clear, compelling, value-neutral ways to describe their work to each other.
• Perspective matters: The process of working through value differences may strengthen emerging partnerships. This conversation demands transparency, flexibility and courage as organizations claim their own perspective, consider alternative points of view, and co-develop a rationale for working together.
• Context matters: Successful programs are cognizant of the multiple influences surrounding vulnerable youth. This approach requires adult leaders to engage young people in sharing their stories and articulating their own needs.
• Relationships matter: The act of working across established fields is fundamentally about building relationships; in order to collaborate effectively, agencies must be drawn to each other, engage in a collegial manner, and have confidence that they are mutually invested in joint work.
• Purpose matters: An explicit social justice mandate could potentially unify programs of all kinds - including relationship education and teenage pregnancy prevention - under the banner of creating opportunities that enhance young people’s lives.

Strategic actions put forth by this group to advance this conversation include:

• Demonstration and testing: Launch pilot projects and projects to test promising practices and assess the effectiveness of blended strategies.
• Youth involvement: Include youth voices in the dialogue about relationship education and teen pregnancy prevention.
• Information sharing: Build a dynamic system for two-way communication between the fields of relationship education and teen pregnancy prevention.
• Identification of leaders and structure: Identify a formal leadership structure to spearhead efforts to integrate relationship education and teen pregnancy prevention.
• Concept mapping and gap analysis: Analyze current data, research, curriculum and emerging practices in teen pregnancy prevention and healthy relationship education.
• Maximizing Personal Responsibility and Education Program (PREP) resources: Provide capacity-building support to help states access and use PREP funds for integrating teen parenting and adult prep topics.

...The key themes and strategic actions identified during this gathering provide a starting point for practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and funders who are willing to take a broad view of what young people need and explore relationship education and teen pregnancy prevention as complementary strategies."