Abstinence Program Shows Real Promise of Helping Youth Stay Pure
by Mary Rettig and Jenni Parker
May 10, 2005
(AgapePress) - An independent study of "Best Friends," a national abstinence-only program for middle-school age girls, is showing genuine results. "Can Abstinence Work? An Analysis of the Best Friends Program," was authored by Dr. Robert Lerner, Ph.D., and provides empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of the program.Elayne Bennett is the president and founder of The Best Friends Foundation, which offers the program. She says Lerner's study focused on girls participating from 1999 to 2002, "and the results showed that Best Friends girls were six times less likely to be sexually active; about eight times less likely to use drugs; almost two times less likely to drink alcohol; and a little over two times less likely to smoke."
But this program does more than just focus on promoting abstinence from sex, Bennett points out. It also uses fitness classes, mentoring, and community service to help young girls make healthy choices in other areas of life. Also, she notes, the Best Friends program has a male counterpart called "Best Men" as well as a high school program for girls called "Diamond Girls."
The founder of Best Friends says there is a significant difference between teens in these programs and the sort that have teens sign purity commitment cards or "virginity pledges," which the mainstream media have frequently panned as ineffective. She maintains that comparing abstinence programs like Best Friends with others that emphasize one-time pledge events or other intermittent activities is not a useful exercise.
Bennett says many of the purity pledge-type programs that have been studied differ from Best Friends in that "they are often not long term, often do not go through several school years, and they do not have the 110 hours of contact that we offer in our program."
However, Bennett says she also questions the analyses of the other abstinence programs, including the pledge-based ones. Among the programs of that type, she contends, are some that have demonstrated encouraging results as well.
The Best Friends abstinence education program is currently in use in more than 100 schools across the United States. School systems are licensed to use its extensive year-long curriculum and faculty training program, which provides the skills, guidance, and support to help young people choose abstinence from sex until marriage and reject illegal drugs, alcohol use, and violence.
