Promoting Adolescent Sexual Health and Safety, a Community-Based Collaboration

Promoting Adolescent Sexual Health and Safety (PASS) is a unique, community-based effort in Washington, DC, to create and evaluate a program for teenagers that is focused on sexual health and tailored to their experiences and needs. PASS is the result of a partnership between the Benning Terrace District of Columbia Housing Authority community, including participating teens, and the Urban Institute. This report presents an overview of the PASS program model. We begin with a description of the PASS process and the community engagement theory behind the approach. We then present a discussion of participant outcomes and an implementation narrative that represents the experiences of both the PASS facilitators and participants. We also describe changes we made to the PASS model and innovations that occurred at least in part because of restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The final section presents the lessons learned and next steps for PASS.