The Africentric Transtheoretical model in a school-based pregnancy prevention program

This article describes the use of a socio-culturally specific framework for a pregnancy prevention program for low income 10 to 12 year old African American middle school girls. The framework expands earlier (Johnson, 1995) conceptualizations by combining African and African American frames of reference with behavior change processes to influence sexual decision-making among young adolescents.This article describes the use of a socioculturally specific framework for a pregnancy prevention program called Africentric-oriented Sexuality Education and Pregnancy Prevention (ASEPP) for low-income African-American middle school girls aged 10-12 years living in the US. The ASEPP program combines an Africentric perspective with the Transtheoretical Behavior model of behavior change. The purpose of integrating Africentric perspectives into the ASEPP program is to provide the initial impetus for capturing the girl's interest in participating, and guide the facilitator in the content selection of school-based curriculum. During the implementation of the ASEPP program, measures were developed to determine the success of the program. In the Transtheoretical model, several stages of change, the processes of change and levels of behavior change are presented. The goals of the ASEPP intervention are: 1) measurement of the behaviors concerning sexual activity, contraceptive use, and limitation of sexual partners; 2) movement to the next behavior stage; 3) maintenance of the behavior; and 4) revisitation of time frame for behavior change.