The RRM Foundation proposes a five-year, independently evaluated study of an established mother-daughter body-literacy program, generating the first modern rigorous evidence in a category federal policy has prioritized and the evidence base has not yet reached.
This year's federal Teen Pregnancy Prevention program was rewritten around two priorities: body literacy, the ability to understand and interpret one's own reproductive physiology, and transparency with parents, including advance notice, review, and opt-out. Alongside the evaluation tier, $63.4 million was appropriated this cycle to replicate programs that already hold rigorous evidence.
Yet the federal evidence list contains no body-literacy program. The category's foundational trials are two decades old and fall outside the review's timeliness window; contemporary programs have formative and community evidence but no modern impact study. Replication funding cannot reach the category until someone produces the evidence.
That is precisely the purpose of Tier 2: rigorous, independent evaluation of promising interventions with formative support. This project exists to close that gap.
Developed and delivered by Pearl & Thistle since 2018: staged body-literacy education for girls ages 8–18, taught through parishes, Catholic schools, and diocesan partners, with existing train-the-trainer materials and a trained facilitator bench. Diocesan adoption and a national innovation-award shortlist evidence its community support.
The program is mother-daughter delivered. Parents are not merely notified of content; they are participants in the room from the first session. Parental transparency is not a compliance layer added for this application. It is the program's architecture.
Girls learn to read their own biological signals as health information: cycle physiology, hormonal patterns, and what is and is not normal, taught age-appropriately across two program stages.
Advance review of all materials, voluntary enrollment, and a parent physically present throughout. The proposal operationalizes the notice-review-opt-out standard by design rather than by procedure.
The adolescent fertility-awareness literature establishes that this class of intervention can move the behavioral outcomes this program measures. These studies are cited as the category's proof-of-concept for the theory of change, not as the intervention's own results; the intervention's record is formative and community evidence, which is the evidence tier this funding opportunity exists to build upon.
| Study | Design | N | Key finding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cabezón et al., J Adolesc Health 2005 | Randomized controlled trial, classroom-assigned | 1,259 | Teen pregnancy 3.3% vs 18.9% (RR 0.176–0.195), four-year follow-up |
| Vigil et al., Rev Med Chil 2005 | Quasi-experimental, comparison group | 740 | Sexual initiation 6.5% vs 15% vs standard curriculum |
| Klaus et al., Int J Adolesc Med Health 1987 | Multisite pilot | 235 | Parental involvement associated with postponement of sexual activity |
The program-specific formative exhibit (participation counts, diocesan adoptions, and documented parent and participant feedback) is draft: compiling with developer. A formative evaluation manuscript with the developer as first author is in preparation independent of this application.
Matched-pair cluster quasi-experimental design as the primary approach, with staggered-start comparison groups drawn from enrolled sites; a cluster-randomized upgrade path is specified where site logistics permit. Intent-to-treat as the primary analysis; attrition handled against What Works Clearinghouse standards; minimum detectable effects powered for a modest, defensible first rigorous test rather than anchored to historical effect sizes.
The evaluation is designed and conducted by a university team with no role in the curriculum evaluator confirmation pending. IRB approval within 12 months of award; public study registration within 15 months; performance measures reported semi-annually through the federal TPP system; final analysis and reporting in the closing project phase.
Families opt in, exactly as they do for the program today. Some enrolled groups begin immediately and some begin later; the not-yet-started groups provide the fair comparison. Three short survey waves (baseline, program exit, and follow-up) measure behavioral outcomes alongside body-literacy knowledge, self-efficacy, and the parent-child relationship. All instruments are reviewed in advance by parents and approved by a university ethics board.
Refine and manualize. Produce the study edition of the curriculum with documented end-user feedback from parent and participant focus groups by the end of Year 1.
Build delivery capacity. Train a facilitator cohort through the developer's train-the-trainer model and activate 2–3 delivery sites for the 2027 school year. sites: draft
Deliver with fidelity. Implement successive program cohorts across the delivery sites with session-level fidelity monitoring across Years 2–5.
Measure behavioral outcomes. Collect baseline, exit, and follow-up waves on delayed initiation and related behavioral domains with attrition within federal evidence standards.
Measure intermediate outcomes. Track body-literacy knowledge, self-efficacy, and parent-child communication as specified intermediate domains.
Report and disseminate. Registered study, final impact analysis, an implementation-ready program package delivered to the funder, and peer-reviewed publication.
Numeric targets and denominators finalize with the evaluator's power analysis pending; the full objective set with measures appears in the application logic model.
| Deadline | Funder-mandated deliverable |
|---|---|
| Month 6 | Executed formal agreements with all partners and subrecipients |
| Month 10 | Pilot test of intervention materials complete |
| Month 12 | Final materials · data collection plan · evaluation design · IRB approval · staff trained |
| Month 15 | Public study registration |
| Year 3 | Analysis plan finalized |
| Close | Final analysis, reporting, and implementation-ready program package to OPA |
501(c)(3) education and research foundation (EIN 93-4594315). Grants management, IRB liaison, study registration, data infrastructure, and dissemination through its 3,000+ study research library and national education platform. Independent-majority board; written conflict-of-interest policy aligned to federal award standards.
Program developer and standard-keeper: curriculum authority, facilitator training, and fidelity support. The developer retains ownership of the program and the study edition; the project holds a study license. Compensation and scope finalize in the post-award agreement.
A university evaluation team with reproductive-health methods depth designs and conducts the study end to end: power analysis, IRB, registration, and intent-to-treat analysis, with no role in curriculum and documented independence from the developer.
Delivery separated from measurement; measurement separated from coordination. Each criterion of the review maps to the partner built to own it.
Annual request within the published $650K–$1.25M band; first budget period detailed line-item with justification, subsequent periods summarized per the announcement's budget instructions. All partner compensation is documented, auditable, and set by written agreement.