Programs have won support from community and religious leaders by forming early alliances with sympathetic leaders, by showing that young adults' health needs are important, and by involving community leaders in program design and implementation. In Jamaica community leaders helped design health services and then joined in program activities and monitoring. Health care professionals are community leaders, too, and deserve special attention. Working with parents. One good way to work with parents is to give them the help and support that they want in guiding their children.
Many parents delay talking to their children, perhaps because they feel ill-informed or embarrassed.
Some fail to acknowledge that uncertainty is normal in learning to make sexual decisions and alienate their children by demanding rigid obedience. Several programs have helped parents communicate with their adolescent children. One US program made parents more aware of the social pressures on their children to be sexually active. In a US school program, teachers gave students the assignment to talk to their parents about sexual abstinence and contraception. Young adults endorse informing and helping parents.