F.A.Q.'s
How does the WTW program work?
Students in participating school districts receive 8-10 lessons per year through core curricula classes, such as science and health classes. They are taught by the science and health teachers within the school district. The majority of the lessons involve forming a set of skills that will help the students resist pressure to become involved in sexual activity, alcohol conumption, drugs, violence and other risk behaviors. Lessons include chapters that focus on goal-setting, communication, refusal skills, setting boundaries, relationship skills, conflict/resolution, the dangers of alcohol and drugs in regard to sexual activity and media discernment. In addition, trained WTW nurse educators visit each grade once a year and teach lessons about puberty, reproductive anatomy, sexually transmitted diseases and fetal development & childbirth.
Isn't sexual activity a moral choice? How do you teach that in the classroom?
WTW advocates avoiding the onset of early sexual activity from a public health, social and economic perspective, not from a moral or religious perspective. Identifying early teen sexual activity as a public health issue has enabled us to develop a team of medical professionals to present and teach key components of our program. Educators, professional speakers and youth leaders are also utilized, as well as targeting the community at large in order to change the social expectations regarding teen sexual activity and create a supportive community atmosphere that values abstinence as an attainable and desirable goal for teens
Are students and teens WTW's only targets?
We also target parents as the primary educators of their children. Research has shown that teens rank their parents, NOT their friends, as the strongest influence in their decisions about sexual activity. Therefore, it is extremely imortant that parents talk with their teens, starting when they are still young children, about these issues.
Why should school districts get involved in teaching these issues?
While the best place for instruction about these issues is at home, sometimes that doesn't happen. At the same time, school districts can also reap the benefits of teaching teens to remain sexually abstinent. According to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, abstinent teens have much higher outcomes than teens who are not abstinent. Virgin teens are 60 percent less likely to be expelled from school, 50 percent less likely to drop out of high school and almost twice as likely to graduate from college. The linkage between academic achievement and abstinence has two explanations:
-
Abstinent teens are less likely to be exposed to the emotional and psychological consequences of sexual activity at a young age and are better able to focus on their school work.
-
The skill sets taught by abstinence education, such as goal-setting, resistance to peer pressure, impulse control and communication, lead them to success in life.
How is the program evaluated? What are the results?
WTW has a partnership for evaluation with Baylor University. Dr. John F. Tanner has served as our evaluator since 1998. Pre and Post surveys are conducted each year with teens beginning in the 7th grade. These teens take the survey each year they are in the program.
What we are finding is extraordinary! From the years 1998-2002, teen pregnancy decreased 53 percent in our county of longest origin, Gray County. In general, teens who have been in the WTW program two or more years were the least sexually active, followed by those in the program for one year. Thos who had never had WTW were the most sexually active. Also, Amarillo ISD 2006 results indicate more than a 40 percent decline in sexually experienced middle school students (from 14 percent to 8 percent since 2003). Sexual activity also decreased among 9th graders in AISD by 33 percent from 2005 to 2006.
In addition, there is evidence that our abstinence education is also very effective among teens who are sexually active. Sexually active teens in the WTW program were three times more likely to visit a medical professional for STD testing and treatment.
How is WTW funded?
-
Private Foundations
-
Participating School Districts
-
Community Donations and Sponsorships
Other Important Questions
Why Abstinence?
Abstinence Myths
