CA Personal Responsibility Education Program


State Program Consultants and Contract Managers Local Coordinators.
Group of teenager ages 17-19 sitting down together

The California Personal Responsibility Education Program (CA PREP) provides comprehensive sexual health education to adolescents via effective, evidence-based program models. The program focuses on how to pre-vent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Program services are engaging, nonjudgmental, medically accurate and tailored to the unique needs of youth participants and their communities. Services are offered in a range of settings, including schools, juvenile justice facilities, homeless shelters and foster care group homes. CA PREP activities also include community engagement and promotion of clinical linkages to youth-friendly reproductive health services.

New!  Public notice of intent to award for fiscal year 2021-22, announced June 23, 2021.

Program Profile

OUR GOAL: To promote and improve the
sexual and reproductive health of high-need youth populations.

WE SERVE: Youth ages 10-19. Target populations include youth who: reside, attend school or receive reproductive health services in a high-need geographic area; are homeless and/or runaway; attend an alternative or continuation school; are in or emancipated from foster care; are in the juvenile justice or probation system; identify as LGBTQ; are receiving treatment for mental health or substance abuse issues; have special needs; live in migrant farmworker families or are expectant/parenting female youth up to age 21.

SERVICE DELIVERY: Services are provided primarily by community-based organizations and clinics, as well as county health departments and county offices of education/superintendents of schools.

OUTCOMES: CA PREP curricula are evidence-based. They have been shown to change behavior, including delaying sexual activity, increasing condom or contraceptive use for sexually active youth, or reducing number of sexual partners. To improve the likelihood of achieving the same results, CA PREP agencies implement curricula with fidelity.

FINANCING: Federally funded and overseen by the Administration for Children & Families, Family & Youth Services Bureau.

<span class='pullquote'>Change in youth condom knowledge for CA-PREP with n equal to 7097. Upon entry, 33.6 male and 22.0 female. Both increase upon exit: 74.4 for male and 70.2 for female.</span>
  • PREP is a part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law in 2010. That same year, the California Department of Public Health’s Maternal, Child and Ado-lescent Health Division was awarded funds to implement the program. Local agencies began implementing CA PREP in De-cember 2012.
  • As of March 2016, CA PREP agen-cies have reached over 40,000 youth throughout California.
  • In Fiscal Year 2013-14, California exceeded its planned annual reach by 40%.
  • Across the state from program entry to exit, condom knowledge increased 44% among CA PREP youth served between September 2013 and July 2014. .

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