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Students at Dwight Morrow High
School in Englewood, N.J., are participating in a peer education program to
teach their peers how to make smart choices concerning their sexual health. The
school instituted the program, called Teen Prevention Education Program (Teen
PEP), after The Zone, a youth service program run at the school by the Bergen
Family Center, held a teen leadership conference. Tenafly High School brought
the Teen PEP program to this conference and it was a huge hit with the youth.
After that, Dwight Morrow staff decided to bring TEEN PEP to its school.
Teen PEP is a five-days-a week,
four-credit elective course that helps students learn about pregnancy
prevention, birth control, and STDs as well as how to educate one’s peers. The
participants, mostly juniors, hold regular workshops with freshmen, performing
skits of different scenarios students may encounter during their high school
years and the best ways to handle the situations. Before participating in
workshops, Teen PEP members take a three-day retreat to learn the material they
will teach the freshmen and to bond with each other. Program participants have
found that freshmen are more willing to discuss issues and ask questions about
sexual health with peers rather than adults.
After the skits, each junior spends
one-on-one time with a small group of freshmen to review topics covered in the
skits and address questions. Teen PEP helped the freshmen learn about sexual
health while helping the juniors develop leadership and public speaking skills.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
