Simply having access to an adult counselor can help young adults to practice safer sex. A Baltimore, MD, family planning clinic provided individual and group counseling at two high schools during school hours, and at the clinic after school. Free services included contraceptive counseling, pregnancy testing and referrals. Students who did not need these services could still visit to discuss issues or watch films. Experts attribute the program's success to the accessibility of trained staff who treated their young clients respectfully.
Teenagers care very much whether their providers are caring.
The identification of a teenager with a provider in a loving relationship over time is a wonderful way to build motivation. All these factors appear to have created an atmosphere that allowed teenagers to translate their attitudes into constructive preventive behavior. Once a sense of trust is established between a young adult and a provider or counselor, specific skills should be taught. Some of the skills that sexually active adolescents should learn include the ability to obtain and use condoms, as well as to be able to communicate about contraceptive use and STD prevention with a partner. If you tell teenagers to feel good about themselves when they do not have any substantive reason to feel good about themselves, you are not helping them.