In 2010, Hennepin County, Minn., was one of 16 grantees awarded funds by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to replicate with fidelity and rigorously evaluate evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs. Abt Global conducted a rigorous evaluation of Hennepin County’s Teen Outreach Program (TOP), a school-based youth development and service learning program. TOP is implemented in middle and high school classrooms by staff from community agencies with the help of classroom teachers.

Abt used an experimental evaluation design to determine the effect of TOP on reducing sexual risk-taking behaviors among teens in the program. A complementary mixed-method implementation study combined program output and fidelity data with data from on-site key informant interviews to answer questions about the extent to which the TOP model was fully implemented and what it takes to replicate TOP in the local context.

Read the final report.