Effectiveness of Parent- Teenage Communication About Sex Program

Abstract

School sex education has been used as the main intervention to prevent teenage
pregnancy and promote responsible sex. Participatory teaching and learning methods has
been promoted to enhance a student’s life skill rather than knowledge. It was successful
to a certain extent. However another influencing factor such as the family factor such as
parent teenager communication has not been formally developed and introduced. Path
to Health Foundation (P2H) has developed the training for trainer curriculum to change the
parent’s attitude, confident and communication skill and tried out in four provinces in
Thailand. Triangulative evaluation results indicated that this curriculum is effective in
enhancing the trainees’ confident to become a trainer for their network. Moreover, the
parents who attended the program organized by the second level trainer have changed
their attitude towards their teens and able to communicate confidently with their teens.
In addition, the original curriculum was designed for two days, but in practice, it was carried
out in two patterns, one day and two days. This is due to the context and time availability
of the parents. Regarding the implementation support, this curriculum received supports
from different networks such as a parent network, Ministry of Education, the community
hospital network, Ministry of Public Health, and the local government, Ministry of Interior.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the parent – teen communication curriculum is
effectively for promoting parent’s communication behavior, and can be efficiently support
by at least three ministries in Thailand context.