Mission
Through fact-based education, provide teens with the tools to make healthy lifestyle choices about sexuality in order to increase their opportunity for successful lives.
UT Health Science Center Sex Education Program
In the spring of 2003, with the support of Dr. Patricia Sulak, founder of The Scott & White Sex Education Program, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio applied for and received a Title V grant from the Texas Department of State Health Services to provide abstinence education to desiring schools within Bexar County. In October 2005, additional funding from a Community-Based Abstinence Education grant was secured allowing greater expansion in Bexar County and surrounding communities. At this time, the program is offered in 24 public school districts in San Antonio and South Texas and in 8 parochial and private schools in San Antonio.
The UT Health Science Center Sex Education Program utilizes the Scott & White Worth the Wait® (WTW) Sex Education Curriculum as an all-inclusive unit. The materials are founded on medical, legal, psychological, and socioeconomic information regarding teen sexual activity. Based on the probable consequences of adolescent sexual activity, the safest and healthiest choice for teens is abstinence. The Scott & White WTW and the UT Health Science Center Sex Education Program work to empower adolescents with information to help them establish healthy relationships as teens and throughout life. Through interactive activities within well structured age-appropriate lessons, teens are provided with useful skills and current information which will enable them to remain abstinent in today’s sexually-saturated society. The Program includes a parent education component and parent letters are included in each lesson to help parents discuss these difficult issues with their teens at home. Through the community education component, efforts are made to provide the consistency and support that our youth need in order to make a commitment to this health message.
As the Program has grown additional curriculum resources for districts/schools have been offered. Beginning in August 2006 the UT Health Science Center Sex Education Program began to offer curriculum and training from WAIT Training® in an effort to meet the needs of high-risk youth.
About the Curricula
The WTW® curriculum, in its entirety, will take approximately ten class periods (45 minutes in length) to teach in each grade level.
Each lesson includes:
- A lesson plan with objectives, materials needed, preparations, procedures, and assessments.
- Suggested activities with detailed directions and a scripted narrative.
- Master copies of all handouts and activities.
WAIT Training® provides interactive teaching strategies that present factual information and resistance skills. WAIT Training® includes the Medical Cessation Model for Sexually Active Youth, which provides teens who currently are or have been sexually active with skills needed to evaluate their relationships and consider a return to an abstinent lifestyle.