Contraceptive Awareness and Reproductive Education

This trial will evaluate a Motivational Interviewing (MI) intervention designed to improve
contraceptive use and decrease STIs for at-risk youth for both those who do and do not want a
pregnancy. Those interested in becoming pregnant will be counseled in the risks associated
with teen pregnancy and what it means to have a healthy pregnancy and raise a child. The
investigators will utilize Title X programs in Rhode Island to provide reproductive health
services in the community. The investigators will recruit 325 at risk youth from Juvenile
Justice programs, alternative schools, group homes, and Community Mental Health Centers and
randomize them to two interventions: two sessions of personalized MI or two sessions of
Awareness for Sexual Health (ASH), both delivered individually by trained counselors. MI is
based on the principles of the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) and on MI, an empirically
supported counseling technique designed to enhance readiness to change targeted behaviors.
ASH provides didactic information about contraception, STI prevention and abstinence, and is
intended to control for the effects of assessment and attention.

Inclusion Criteria:

- 1) Age 14-21;

- 2) Currently sexually active with males defined as having had coital sex and intending
to have coital sex within the next 6 months;

- 3) Willing to comply with protocol, follow-up assessments, and provide at least one
locator; and

- 4) Fluent in English.

Exclusion Criteria:

- 1) Inability to give informed consent secondary to organic brain dysfunction, or
active psychosis or otherwise not able to participate in the intervention or
assessments (deaf, blind, or impaired communication skills that preclude participation
in assessment or counseling);

- 2) Girls who are not sexually active; or

- 3) Currently pregnant.