DREAMING OF ABSTINENCE, NOT SEX, IN AN ELECTION YEAR

"Founded in 1995, Heritage Community Services' programs utilize The Heritage MethodSM, a logic model that addresses the risky behavior of adolescents from the perspective of changing the behavior that is causing the problem rather that dealing with the consequences of the risky actions.

"The Heritage MethodSM is a systemic approach that through the use of our programs is designed to saturate whole communities with effective resources to help young people develop good character, abstain from risky behaviors, and prepare for marriage and family life. This method, which is a character-based systemic approach to risk avoidance, has been developed on a foundation of sound theory and methodology. Our students are 67% less likely to have had sex compared to similar non-program students measured a year after the program is over." (Source with emphasis added, and photo  credit:  The Heritage Method website.

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHH) has quietly listed Heritage Community Services as an "evidenced based" conception-prevention program.

The prob is that there is no evidence that the program is effective. No evidence at all. No peer review. No scientific method. No nothing. So, when Heritage Method asserts that something-or-other is 67% more likely than something else, there is a 100% chance data does not exist to back up this assertion. 

The Heritage Method is all about abstinence. 

School systems that contract with the Heritage Method set up mandatory attendance programs for middle- and high-schoolers, who are asked if they are "virgins" and whose responses then become the "scientific" grounds for later assertions about the effectiveness of the programs.

Condoms? Ignored. 


Instead of dealing with contraception, young men and young women are asked to envision their wedding day. 

For the young man:

“The doors swing open and there stands your bride in her white dress…This is the woman you have waited for (remained abstinent for) who has waited for you…This woman loves you and trusts you with all that she is and all that she has. You want to be strong, respectful and courageous for her. With all your heart, you want to protect her, and by waiting (sexually) you have.” (Heritage Keepers, Student Manual, p. 59)

and for the young woman:

“Everything is just as you have seen it in a million daydreams…” When the bride takes her father's arm: “Your true love stands at the front. This is the man who you have waited for (remained abstinent for) and who has waited for you…This man wants to be strong and courageous for you, to cherish and protect you… You are ready to trust him with all that you have and all that you are, because you have waited (sexually) you have it all to give.” (Heritage Keepers, Student Manual, p. 49)

What are young LGBT kids asked to envision?

Sorry, for Heritage Keepers, you do not exist.

The evidence that abstinence "works" is touted not by scientists in peer reviewed studies but by speakers and presenters at events sponsored by the National Abstinence Education Association. (See, for example the Abstinence Works 2011 REPORT, which is a PDF file you can buy for twenty bucks, but otherwise cannot read.)

There have been peer-reviewed studies of the Heritage Method. Two, in fact. These studies concluded:

…the [Heritage Keepers] Life Skills Education Component did not have significant impacts on 11 of the 12 intermediate outcomes related to sexual abstinence. The one exception is a significant impact among middle school youth on their friends’ support for abstinence.

and:

Findings indicate that the [Heritage Keepers Abstinence Program’s] Life Skills Education Component had little or no impact on sexual abstinence or activity

A third review has concluded differently - but without actually producing a "study."

Instead of reporting findings, the DHH refers us to the Heritage Keepers themselves, and their curriculum.

RH-Reality Chech lays out the problem and asks the pertinent question:

"To date, there is still no published peer-reviewed manuscript to help assess what, if anything, changed for the program to make the list. Was a new study conducted? Did the authors submit new data or simply rework the old?"

Yep. It's an election year.