South Carolina Parents Involved in Education provides a sustainable intervention model that address South Carolina’s persistent problem of adolescent sexual activity which results in adolescent out-of-wedlock pregnancies and adolescent sexually transmitted diseases. This unprecedented model equips public school teachers to provide a strong abstinence until marriage message to students and empowers adult community members to support and reinforce this message.

Teachers in seven public school districts are being trained through a graduate course designed to teach the social, psychological and health gains to be realized when adolescents abstain from sexual activity until marriage. The teachers are then provided a curriculum-specific training to implement Scott and White Hospital’s Worth the Wait abstinence education curriculum.

A subcontract with Pee Dee Family & Community Development program will provide concentrated efforts in the African American faith community of the targeted school districts. At least 42 churches will train their clergy, lay leaders and parents to implement the Healthy Image of Sex curriculum, specifically designed for this target population.

South Carolina Parents Involved in Education expects the results and benefits of the proposed project to be: (a) reduction in the proportion of adolescents who engage in premarital sexual activity, including but not limited to sexual intercourse; (b) reduction in the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and (c) reduction in the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases among adolescents.