Invitation for SCHOOLS to partner in a research study
Health Connected & ETR are seeking school partners for a study of a 4-to-5-hour “booster” sexual health intervention for 11th and 12th-grade students. Schools that join will:
• Receive a stipend of up to $2000 (plus another stipend of up to $2000 for their district)
• Have a 50-50 chance of receiving the Wrap It Up intervention, a brief program designed to equip them with the knowledge and skills they need to make informed sexual health decisions as they move into adulthood.
• Facilitate ETR’s recruitment of student participants. Students with parent consent will be paid to complete three surveys over one year, the first one in class
If you are interested in knowing more, please read on for all the details.
What is Wrap It Up?
Wrap It Up is designed to equip 11th and 12th grade students with the knowledge and skills necessary to make informed sexual health decisions as they move from high school into adulthood. Using a science-grounded approach, Wrap It Up focuses on healthy relationships and self-advocacy in a consolidated 4-to-5-hour intervention. Because it’s a short “booster” program that builds on the education youth have already received, Wrap It Up does not replace the sexual health education mandated by the State of California through the California Healthy Youth Act or by the State of Washington through RCW 28A.300.475 Wrap It Up will be taught by trained Health Educators from a local community-based organization.
Why is this study being done?
The goal of this project is to test the effectiveness of Wrap It Up in preventing behavioral risk factors underlying unintended teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). It focuses on youth at California and Washington schools that serve rural communities, are in counties with higher than state average adolescent birth rates, or are continuation or alternative schools This project is funded by the Office of Population Affairs (Grant # 1 TP2AH000084-01-00), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. They awarded ETR a 5-year cooperative agreement to carry out a rigorous evaluation of Wrap It Up.
Who is ETR?
ETR is a national non-profit organization committed to improving the health and well-being of youth and communities by championing science In this project, the Wrap It Up intervention ETR is testing is based on the Teen Talk family of sexual health education programs designed by Health Connected. Health Connected is a non-profit organization with over 30 years’ experience in creating and disseminating comprehensive sexual health education to young people and their families.
What will my school be asked to do?
Schools that partner in the study will participate for one year. Half of participating schools will receive the Wrap It Up intervention, the “intervention group.” Half will be in a group does not receive the intervention, the “control group.” Each school will have a 50-50 chance of getting Wrap It Up as part of the study After the study year is over, Health Connected will offer the intervention to control group schools too.
Will my school or district be paid?
All partner schools, regardless of whether we teach Wrap It Up at their site during the study, will receive a $2000 stipend. Each partner district whose schools take part will also receive a $2000 stipend for their participation. If the Office of Population Affairs (the study’s federal funder) withdraws funding before the end of January 2027, the study may have to end new school enrollment If this happens, a school’s planned participation may not occur, and the school may not receive its stipend.
To participate, we ask that schools:
Support study planning
1. Agree to take part in the study no matter what group they are randomly selected for (Wrap It Up intervention group or control group)
2. Work with the study team to make sure teachers, parents, and students only learn what group they’re in after students take their first survey. (For the study to work, ETR needs to wait until after the first survey to share this information.)
3. Identify a school coordinator who will be the study’s main point of contact, ideally the teacher for a study class. This person will help with things like scheduling the student surveys (in both groups), scheduling the Wrap It Up sessions (in the intervention group only), and helping the study find youth who have left school or graduated so that they can take their follow-up surveys.
4. Select classes of 11th and/or 12th graders to take part in the study. In the intervention group, these students will receive the Wrap It Up intervention and take surveys at 3 timepoints: Right before the Wrap It Up intervention begins, 6 months after it, and 12 months after it. In the control group, students will take surveys at the same 3 time points
Communicate with parents/caregivers
5. Work with the project team to ensure that teachers, parents, and students know if and when Wrap It Up will be offered at their school, but that they learn this only after students take their first survey.
6. Send parents Opt Out Notifications for the Wrap It Up program at least 2 weeks before the inschool study enrollment date, and track students whose parents opt them out of Wrap It Up using an ETR-provided tracking sheet. This opt out process is separate from obtaining parental consent for the study. Students whose parents opt them out of Wrap It Up will not be eligible to participate in the study.
7. Assist with obtaining parental consent for students to take part in the study. The school coordinator and teachers in study classes will be responsible for distributing and collecting consent forms.
• ETR will give every student who returns a completed consent form a $15 gift card, whether or not their parent or caregiver agrees to have them take part in the study.
• Teachers in all study classes will receive a $25 gift card to thank them for their support. Teachers who have 75% or more of their students return consent forms will receive an additional $50 gift card, and teachers who have 85% or more forms returned will receive an additional $200 gift card
Facilitate study activities
8. If the school is randomly assigned to receive Wrap It Up, support the teaching of Wrap It Up by allowing trained facilitators to implement the curriculum in classes selected to take part in the study. All program materials will be provided at no cost.
9. Agree that except for sexual health programming required by the California Healthy Youth Act or Washington’s RCW 28A.300.475, the school will not implement any other sexual health education programs for the 11th or 12th grade students involved in the study, until after all study data collection is completed. This includes programs delivered after school or in other classes. Relatedly, we will ask schools to track and let ETR know about all sexual health programming that they offer during the study.
10. Allow ETR data collectors to come to the school to survey students at up to 3 time points: (1) a baseline survey (at all schools, taking place before Wrap It Up is taught in intervention group schools), (2) approximately 6 months after baseline, and (3) approximately 12 months after baseline. Follow-up surveys may also occur online without a school visit.
What will youth be asked to do in the study?
We will ask all students in the classes or groups the school selects for the study to return completed parental consent forms. Students will receive individual $5 gift cards for returning these forms (whether or not their parent or caregiver consents to their participation in the study).
Not all students who take part in the study will receive Wrap It Up. Participating schools will be randomly assigned to either the “intervention group” or the “control group.” Students whose school is in the intervention group will receive Wrap It Up and also take surveys. Students whose school is in the control group will only take surveys.
All students who have parental consent for the study will be invited to take 3 different surveys: One at “baseline” (for students whose school is in the intervention group, this would take place before the first day of Wrap It Up), one 6 months after the first survey, and one 12 months after the first survey.
• We will administer the baseline survey at your school using school-issued laptops or other devices. If your school does not provide these, ETR will bring tablet computers for students to use for the baseline survey. The baseline survey (including study enrollment) will require about 55 minutes
• Survey dates will be planned with each school coordinator so that they interfere as little as possible with other activities and testing. All survey materials, including parent consent and student assent forms, will be provided at no cost by ETR.
• In most cases, we plan to send students links to online surveys for their 6- and 12-month follow-up We may ask for support to administer the 6- and 12-month surveys at the school for those students who are still there. These surveys will take about 30 minutes each.
• Students will receive up to a total of $60 in gift card incentives. This includes a $15 gift card for returning a parent consent form, a $5 gift card for establishing text or email contact with the study, a $20 gift card for taking the first (6 month) follow-up survey, and a $20 gift card for taking the second (12 month) follow-up survey.
When will the study start?
The study began in Fall 2024 and is currently scheduling schools for enrollment through January 2027.
What are the next steps?
If you’re interested, please let Sandra or Sadie know as soon as you can She will set up a meeting with your school’s host teacher(s) or coordinator(s) and an ETR team member. They’ll get information from you about these questions as well as answering any question you may have:
• What classes or other groups would you recommend the Wrap It Up study take place in? Note that only 11th and 12th graders are eligible.
• Can you give an estimate of how many 11th graders are in these classes or groups? And how many 12th graders?
• Does your school provide students with laptops or tablet computers? Can students use these to take the baseline survey when ETR comes to the classroom?
• Is there anything about this class or group that might affect the way we offer Wrap It Up or collect survey data (for example, when during the school year it happens)?
• Would you need Wrap It Up and surveys in English only or also in Spanish?
• Do you think of your school as a school that serves students in rural communities?
• Is there anything else about your school site that you’d like us to know?
If you are not interested, please let us know as well, so that we do not follow up with you.
Contact Information
Sandra Allen, Director of Curriculum, Health Connected sandra@health-connected.org
Sadie Frye, Partnerships Program Manager, Health Connected sadie@health-connected.org