Creating a peer health education program to reduce rates of unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections among adolescents

Addressing high rates of sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancies among adolescents has posed a challenge for community agencies working in the diverse community of Southeastern San Diego. To address these issues, San Ysidro Health Center, in partnership with the Jackie Robinson Family YMCA and the Youth Action Board developed the Peer 2 Peer (P2P) Program. The P2P Program, funded by a Networking for Community Health grant through the Community Clinics Initiative is a peer based education and outreach program in which adolescents are trained to provide one on one and group based health education to peers in their communities and schools. Community partners identified twenty students ages 14-17 to interview as peer educators. Once selected peer educators received sixteen hours of extensive training in substantive (e.g., health topics), procedural (e.g., maintaining patient confidentiality) and general presentation skills (e.g., power point presentation). Since the beginning of the project in July 2010, fourteen students received the 16 hour training and participated in various community health fairs, school based health promotion events, and advocacy days in Sacramento. The presenter will explore lessoned learned during year one of the project, in addition to discussing the benefits of maintaining a strong community partnership when creating a peer based community program.