Students Today Aren't Ready for Sex (STARS)
Helping Adolescents postpone sexual involvement by:
- Understanding the consequences of early sexual involvement
- Recognizing peer and social pressures to become sexually involved
- Acquiring skills to resist these pressures
- Using positive peer role modeling
STARS...
is based on the belief that young teens should postpone sexual involvement. Teen leaders, together with an adult facilitator, present 5 interactive classroom sessions to middle school aged students in local schools. Teen leaders are recruited from the local high school and are extensively trained by the Crook County Health Department and the Department of Human Services' STARS trainers to present the STARS curriculum. The 5 sessions focus on 3 main objectives:
- Providing information about the consequences of early sexual involvement
- Informing students about social and peer pressures to become sexually involved
- Modeling and teaching skills which will help teens say "No" to sexual involvement
STARS...
is presented to middle school students in an effort to help them develop skills to resist peer and social pressures to become sexually involved. Teen leaders serve as powerful, positive role models for the younger teens. The presentation of this abstinence based program helps middle schoolers recognize the importance of postponing sexual involvement. Through interactive activities, the middle school students learn to identify the risks of early sexual involvement, recognize the social and peer pressures to become sexually involved, and develop assertiveness skills which can be used to avoid early sexual involvement as well as other negative activies, like drugs, alcohol and tobacco use. STARS stresses the importance of using adolescence as a time to take advantage of a variety of healthy social opportunities available to young teens.
STARS...
is a state educational program offered by the Crook County Health Department, in partnership with the Crook County School District. It is part of a multi-faceted effort to meet the Crook County Benchmark initiative of reducing teen pregnancy. The STARS program is based on the Postponing Sexual Involvement (PSI) curriculum developed in 1983 by Dr. Marion Howard of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The STARS program does not provide information on methods of contraception or other reproductive health issues. Again, it is an abstinence based curriculum.