After much long research, gathering statistics and data, in 2006, I designed and created Nurturing Hearts, Inc, whose mission is to provide supportive leadership and life skills, that prepare girls 10-18 for a bright and positive future. This involved designing and testing a curriculum, that would help girls think more positive about themselves, and their future. I also used what I knew about the community I grew up in, my personal struggles, and experiences/challenges as a young girl. I gathered data from my students, received feedback from schools we provided services to, as well as parents. In addition, to utilizing my psychology background and partnering with experts. My goal was to develop an 8-week program, 12-week program and 20-week program curriculum, for girls ages 10-18 that works. I am Blessed to say…We Did It! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
KeyStone Research Corporation (KSRC 2015) was contracted to evaluate the effectiveness of the Nurturing Hearts program. The research design was a pre-post assessment of a number of factors that were predicted to improve as a result of involvement in Nurturing Hearts; these factors included: self-esteem, goal setting, feelings about abstinence, positive thinking and attitudes, and making healthy choices.
The program participants were administered the questionnaire prior to the start of the program and then at the end. In total there were 15 participants in this first cohort; however, one of the participants did not complete the post-test, and 5 students could not complete due to lack of transportation; therefore some of the data analysis only used 9 participants. 90% of the students came from low-income housing and singe-parent households.
Statistically, Erie has the highest teen pregnancy and juvenile probation rate amongst teenage girls in the state of PA.
Risk factors for adolescent pregnancy include:
- Younger age
- Poor school performance
- Economic disadvantage
- Older male partner
- Single or teen parents
Risk Factors for negative thinking amongst teenage girls include:
- Relatively negative thinking is a risk factor for suicide, suicide attempts, and depression, for teenage pregnancy, and for victimization by others.
- In each case, however, this risk factor is one of several and probably interacts with others; Eating Disorders
Nurturing Hearts provides a great resource to the Erie community by combating these statistics and risk factors; providing a program that will, in turn, reduce poverty and crime.
Improvements were seen in these factors: goal setting, abstinence, positive attitudes, and healthy choices. Two of these improvements were statistically significant—changes in positive thinking and attitudes and making healthy choices. Self-esteem was the one factor where there was no improvement. However, as revealed in self-esteem research, it is a very complex construct that primarily develops around an individual’s experience of inclusion or exclusion in various social groups, among other factors. An individual’s self-esteem develops throughout childhood and may change throughout the life span. As such, it is a construct that will not be easily changed as a result of a short-term intervention of a program like Nurturing Hearts. However, with almost a 90% increase in positive thinking, we can confidently predict that long term self-esteem will follow. In addition, Nurturing Hearts will increase the duration of the self-esteem curriculum of the program. Therefore, self-esteem will be taught “each class” for the duration of the 6 months as opposed to just 1 month.
The highest percentage of participants improved in the areas of positive attitudes and healthy choices, with almost 90% showing improvement.
Overall, these data are positive for Nurturing Hearts. Due to the small sample size, showing statistically significant improvement is difficult. However, the statistically significant improvements for positive attitudes and healthy choices reveal the effect that this curriculum had on the young women. ~Keystone Research Corp (c) 2015 (KSRC 2015).