Engaging Males in Reproductive Health Education through Faith Based Organizations

In 2003, The City of Life Christian Church received funding from the Office of Family Planning under the Male Reproductive Health Research Initiative to implement the Male Advocacy Program (MAP). Faith-based organizations (FBOs) can be described as organizations, groups, programs or projects that provide human services, and have a faith element integrated into their organization. There are a variety of misconceptions surrounding FBOs and the types of services that some organizations of this nature provide. In this presentation, we will examine strategies that we have used as a faith-based organization to attract and engage males in the St. Louis Metropolitan area. Utilizing modified components of the Wise Guys and the Sex Can Wait curricula, MAP staff provide eight one-hour sessions to males involved in existing community-based programs/services, as well as males involved in the youth development program at The City of Life Christian Church. Topics include personal and family values, communication and support systems, sexuality, dating violence, abstinence and contraception, goal-setting and decision making, and parenthood. Quantitative and qualitative program findings from Year Three suggest that program participants increased communication about contraception with their parents and increased their knowledge of issues related to sexuality, reproduction, and contraception. In addition, there was an increase in the number of sexually experienced program participants who had reported abstaining from intercourse from the time of the pre-survey to the time of the post-survey. These findings suggest that faith-based organizations can be an important link in providing reproductive health information to males in the community.