PASHA Program Archive MI02PP

PASHA Male Involvement Programs: Santa Cruz County Male Involvement Program & Evaluation Package

The Santa Cruz County Male Involvement Program (hereafter, Male Involvement Program) is a collaborative school-, community-, and clinic-based intervention, which was originally implemented as part of a statewide, male-focused pregnancy prevention effort funded by the California Department of Health Services. The overall goals of the Male Involvement Program are:

• to increase knowledge, skills, and motivation of at-risk adolescent boys and young adult men in order to actively promote their role in reducing teen pregnancies;
• to increase community and individual awareness regarding the importance of the roles and responsibilities of young males in the prevention of teen pregnancies and to reinforce community values that support these roles; and
• to increase males' access to reproductive health information and contraceptive supplies.

To foster community support surrounding male involvement in the prevention of unintended pregnancies, the Information Campaign focuses on four activities: (1) the design and distribution throughout the county of posters regarding the importance of male involvement in teen pregnancy prevention; (2) pamphlets about the program and fathers' rights and responsibilities; (3) male involvement events; and (4) media purchases, including radio spots and signs on public buses with male involvement messages. In Santa Cruz County, program participants were instrumental in designing media slogans and images.

The Male Involvement Program was chosen for the Archive of Male-Oriented Pregnancy Prevention Programs because it has clear goals and objectives; it has been sustainable for a number of years; and both staff and participants expressed satisfaction with the program. In addition, the program has received both local and international honors.

The Male Involvement Program package contains most of what you will need to implement the program, including examples of pamphlets, posters and incentive items distributed to teens in Santa Cruz County. The program package also contains three resources for evaluation: the intake instrument used by the original program developers; the Prevention Minimum Evaluation Data Set (PMEDS), a generic questionnaire that can be adapted to suit most prevention programs for full evaluation; and the Local Evaluator Consultant Network Directory.