"Learning to Live" - a successfull experience in educators' training on preventing pregnancy and STD/Aids in teenagers.
Vilela, Maria Helena*,1, Torselli, Mauricio1, Amadi, Luciana1, 1 Instituto Kaplan, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil
ABSTRACT- Since 2001, Instituto Kaplan, along with Pifzer Labs and the Government Social Fund for the State of São Paulo (Fundo Social do Governo de Estado de São Paulo), is doing a health and sexual responsibility project with teenagers, by training educators who work in beneficent institutions among adolescents, with the objective of introducing actions of prevention using the game "Learn to Live" - a board game that contains challenge, question and risk situation cards, and provide information about sexuality, pregnancy, contraception, STD/Aids and prevention. Objective: to research the efficacy of training and game using in educators' actions among adolescents, parents and other educators from his own institution. Methods: appliance of a multiple-choice questionnaire, by phone, in the beneficent institutions that participated in the project between years 2001 - 2003. The evaluation was done with the 56 institutions that answered our questionnaire, of the 105 total that participated in the project (53%) Results: 90% of the participants are developing prevention actions using the game. 85,7% said that it contains enough information for working on sexuality. From 0 to 10, the medium grade attributed to the game was 9.28. The game was used mainly with teenagers (93%), followed by other educators (62.5%) and parents (30%). Among the themes worked by the game, vulnerability and condom negotiation were drawn in first place (82.1%), followed by teenage pregnancy and contraception (78.5%), life project and drug abuse (64.3%). Besides the themes provided by the questionnaire, some of the interviewed said that homosexuality, prejudice and group/friendship influence were also themes dealt by the game. Conclusion: The game could show its huge potential as an information provider; it allowed the educators the discussion of polemic themes in sexuality, showing how important is the use of a joyful and didactic material to ease the prevention actions. Besides, it provides to the players a continuous renewal of the action, sustaining the interest on itself.
Key words: sexual education, peer education, STD/Aids, pregnancy, adolescence