Involving parents in reproductive health education for youth.

Parent education programs seek to improve adults skills for educating and communicating with youth especially about sexuality and reproductive health. These programs typically provide parents and other adult family members with education to foster understanding of the advantages of their assuming a proactive role in the youths understanding of human sexuality and forming relationships as an integral part of the life cycle. They also provide cognitive information around sex sexuality and reproductive health; and the communication skills needed to respond to young peoples questions convey sexual values and attitudes and seize appropriate opportunities to initiate discussions about sexuality and other reproductive health issues. In order to be most effective parent education programs should operate holistically within the sociocultural context of changing family patterns and work through existing networks of learning institutions and neighborhood organizations. Among the lessons learned from pioneering parent education programs are: 1) mobilizing community support for parent education is crucial for program success; 2) curriculum design should be participatory with input from the community and its youth; 3) careful selection of facilitator is essential; 4) monitoring by supervisors who understand the curriculum will ensure that program goals are met; and 5) program evaluation should be built around realistic indicators.