Notable Free Teens USA Practices*

* The following practices were noted by the Calvin Edwards company, which was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a site visit to “identify and capture potential best practices. The following list provides and overview of numerous practices that appear to be hallmarks of FT’s programmatic success.”

Partnership with schools. FT has cultivated positive relationships and partnerships with the four main school districts and 55 schools with which they work in New Jersey and New York. FT is welcomed back annually to implement its pro-grams. This is an indicator of favor with the school districts, boards of education, and teachers.

 Extensive reach yielding cost-effective program delivery. Due to its extensive reach, FT’s program delivery is cost effective. Its cost per youth-hour—one of the key metrics the CBAE program office uses to evaluate grantees—is low: $10.91, compared with the average for grantees of similar size of $11-$15.

 Leadership dedication and programmatic knowledge. Richard Panzer is the primary author of the Free Teens curriculum and has been educating youth, parents, school teachers, and consulting with other organizations—some of which are other CBAE grantees—for 15 years on the topics of abstinence and healthy marriage. Dr. Panzer formed FT for the sole purpose of spreading these messages.

 Experienced and professional staff. Each of FT’s staff appears to be dedicated to the welfare of youth, as evidenced by their résumés detailing their youth service experiences. The staff uses creative techniques to relate to youth and is well-informed in the area of abstinence education. In addition, several of FT’s program staff are sourced from the communities they serve. This enables the staff to better relate to the target population and therefore motivate greater change in them.

 Staff retention. The staff the site visit team met all appeared to be self-starters, highly dedicated to both the organization and its clientele. Several of the staff have been with FT for many years, which is a testament to its leadership and corpo-rate culture. It also speaks to the commitment of the staff to the organization and its mission. Staff retention creates con-sistency in relationships with program partners, clientele, and other staff. It also enables the organization to institutional-ize, refine, and maximize the benefit of its product offerings thereby building a solid foundation upon which the organization can expand.

 Balance in educator gender. FT has a good mixture of male and female education directors, area club coordinators, and educators. Due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, program partners sometimes request that the abstinence edu-cator be a certain gender, or that male and female educators teach in a team. Having either gender available allows FT the flexibility to meet program partners’ desires and to serve different age-groups or demographics appropriately.

 Parent and influential adult reach. Not only does FT have extensive reach among youth, it has extensive reach among parents and other adults. It projects that 800 parents and 100 school teachers will attend information/education ses-sions each year. FT’s education directors attempt to schedule a parent presentation in every school with which they part-ner. FT’s dedication to this program component is exhibited by the fact that two of its outcomes are directly related to the communication between youth and their parents about the abstinence message. Another example of FT’s emphasis on parent education is the content of the CultureMachine iMagazine CD-ROM, which was designed to provide addi-tional abstinence-related content for youth and parents to work through together.

 Emphasis on healthy relationships and marriage. FT promotes itself and its message as one that supports healthy relationships and marriage. Through its curriculum and by conducting annual marriage-celebration events for youth, FT places an emphasis on the long-term goal of a healthy marriage. According to one of the area club coordinators, many of the youth FT serves do not view marriage as a good thing or as being an option in their lives. Many of these youth are not surrounded by healthy relationships or marriage and therefore often have no concept of the benefits it can provide.

 Strong evaluation design. FT realizes the importance a strong evaluation design can have in measuring program impact and improving program design. Although it was not a requirement of the 2005 CBAE program announcement, FT engaged an outside evaluator for its 2005-2008 CBAE program. Dr. Panzer reportedly made changes to the Free Teens curriculum based on the results of this evaluation. The 2008-2013 evaluation design includes a 1,000-person comparison group consisting of youth representing all four cities FT serves; sets and reports on the attainment of degree-of-change outcome objectives; includes 12-month post-post-testing; and uses an evaluator that is experienced in evaluat-ing abstinence education programs.

 Media products created by program youth. Through the FT media summit, youth are trained to communicate the healthy-lifestyle messages they have learned through one or more of the following media: dance/performance, music, photojournalism, poetry, theater, video production, or visual arts. With the help of media professionals, youth produce their own songs or videos that are posted on FT’s media-related website (www.culturemachine.com) and included in the CultureMachine iMagazine CD-ROM. This program component allows youth to demonstrate their creativity in a positive way and become further committed to abstinence.

 Mentoring clubs. The program strategy, largely defined by its extensive in-school programming, is enhanced by year-long mentoring clubs led by FT staff. The use of mentoring appears to be an important supplement to core curriculum delivery. Because they are held weekly for an entire year, the clubs offer a consistent and repeated message to youth. They also provide an opportunity for youth to develop leadership skills and strong bonds with like-minded peers. The impact FT is having on youth in the clubs is exhibited by the fact that many club members reportedly attend the clubs year-after-year and often recruit other youth to the program.

 Community advisory boards. Community support is an essential tool through which to expand an abstinence education program. This support assists in partner and clientele recruitment, endorses the organization’s mission, provides objective feedback on the program, and can even help sustain it. Realizing this, FT has established 10-12 person community advisory boards in three of the four cities it serves, and it is working on establishing the fourth.

 Program sustainability. In 2008, FT contracted with a consultant to create a fundraising development plan, a proactive step toward sustaining the RIT program should grant funding decline or discontinue. FT management and its board appear committed to implementing the development plan and taking the organization to a level at which it is less dependent on public funding. 

Grantee Profile & Site Visit Report: Free Teens USA, Inc. Page 6-7

Download this report here.