Girls Inc. Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy

Girls Inc. Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy® (GIPAP) is an abstinence-based program aimed at decreasing pregnancy in adolescent and teenage girls. Developed by Girls Incorporated and offered nationwide, GIPAP is based on the idea that there are four components to preventing teen pregnancy: family communication about sexuality, skills in resisting pressure to be sexually active, motivation and resources to postpone pregnancy, and overcoming barriers to effective contraception for sexually active teens. The program has four components: Growing Together (ages 9-11), Will Power/Won't Power (12-14), Taking Care of Business (15-17), and Health Bridge (also 15-17).

The Growing Together component concentrates on improving one's comfort and skill in communicating within the family about sexual information. Parent-daughter pairs or family groups attend it in five 2-hour sessions.

The Will Power/Won't Power component concentrates on delaying the initiation of sexual intercourse among participants by helping girls develop attitudes and skills for dealing with sexuality and health issues. It consists of six 2-hour sessions.

The Taking Care of Business component develops the motivation behind good decision-making regarding sexual activity--that is, choosing either to abstain from sexual intercourse or to use effective and consistent contraception. This consists of nine 2-hour sessions.

The Health Bridge component is a healthcare delivery system that links girls to community healthcare professionals and services. Its key characteristics include accessible and anonymous services, comfort with health personnel, case management, and health education conducted by clinic staff. This component has the most variation, with health professionals ranging from social workers to volunteer nurses.

The goal of this program is to decrease pregnancy in adolescent and teenage girls.

Those who participated in one or more program components were significantly less likely to experience pregnancy than nonparticipants (5.9% vs 12.3%). Those who participated in two or more program components were significantly less likely to engage in sexual intercourse without birth control than those who participated in only a single program component (8.9% vs 20.6%).

This study used a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design. The evaluation compared those who participated in two or more program components with nonparticipants and those who participated in one program component on two outcome variables: sexual intercourse without birth control, and pregnancy experience of the participants. The findings indicate that those who participated in one or more program components were significantly less likely to experience pregnancy than nonparticipants (5.9% versus 12.3%, respectively).

In addition, the study found that those who participated in two or more program components were significantly less likely to engage in sexual intercourse without birth control than those who participated in a single program component (8.9% versus 20.6%). (Notably, this finding is significant only for the bivariate analysis). However, those who participated in two or more program components were as likely to have sexual intercourse without birth control as nonparticipants.