"Girls' Let's Talk": Mother-daughter intervention to address early drinking and sexual behavior in young Latina teens

Along the U.S. –Mexico border where teen and tween pregnancy rates are some of the highest in the nation, a pilot intervention with Latina mothers and daughters addressing early drinking and sexual behavior has shown some significant post-intervention results, increasing girls' self-efficacy and mothers' intention to communicate with their daughters about sex, contraceptives and alcohol. Over the past six years, the investigative team has worked closely with local community groups on a variety of health issues so that a rich participatory research process was followed to develop and pilot test Girls Let's Talk/ Proyecto Comunicándonos. Particularly instrumental in the process was the Girls Let's Talk/Proyecto Comunicándonos advisory board of Spanish speaking mothers, guiding the planning, implementation and evaluation of the intervention so it is culturally/age appropriate. A systematic approach to developing the intervention was undertaken using Intervention Mapping which resulted in matrices aligning desired psychosocial outcomes with intervention strategies. In the end, the intervention consists of a 6-session (14 hours) small group sessions with adolescent girls (10-14 years) and their preferred family adult woman (90% were mothers). The six-session intervention took place twice a week during a 3 week period using specified content, hands-on role play and interactive activities with girls and moms working together on assignments, and in some cases separated for more in-depth discussions. This presentation will show results from this pilot study and make recommendations for future successful approaches to reducing early drinking and early sexual behavior among younger teen girls.