Findings from the most recent evaluation of El Camino, conducted by Child Trends, demonstrate that this culturally relevant program helps students, in high schools with large Latino populations develop the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and relationships that support their ability to make informed decisions about sex and pregnancy and achieve their goals.
El Camino is a positive youth development-focused sexual health education program designed for Latino youth.
Implemented in schools & communities, especially those with large Latino populations
Consists of eleven, 45-minute lessons, organized in 3 sections
Promotes youth academic & career setting; young people develop plans to achieve positive life goals
Learn about how a pregnancy occurs and effective contraception methods to help avoid unintended pregnancy and STIs
Learn about healthy relationships; practice communication skills, how to ask and give consent, and set limits
Read on to learn more about the curriculum including evaluation findings, adaptations, facilitator resources, and training.
El Camino is an adolescent sexual health program that employs a positive youth development approach to encourage youth to define their personal goals and think about how they will attain them. Interactive lessons explore links between goal setting and sexual health decisions and provide information about sex, pregnancy, and healthy relationships.
Designed by Child Trends, this culturally relevant program helps students in high schools with large Latino populations develop the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and relationships that support their ability to make informed decisions about sex and pregnancy and achieve their goals.
To evaluate El Camino, Child Trends partnered with Identity, Inc. to implement El Camino during lunch, elective classes, or after school at 11 high schools in Maryland with large Latino populations. Researchers at the University of Maryland evaluated El Camino’s effectiveness: classrooms at each school were randomly selected to receive either El Camino or an alternative life skills program. This resource summarizes the demographic characteristics of student participants, their perceptions of the program, and pre- and post-test findings that highlight the need for sexual health education and the positive impacts of El Camino.
Percent of students who reported feeling each emotion some of the time, most of the time, or all of the time in the past 30 days.
Students who definitely know where to go to get birth control
Students who are completely confident in stating and asking for consent
Students who are completely confident talking to their partner about sex
Students who are completely confident in talking to their partner about condoms
Condoms
Birth Control
Consent
Awareness of contraceptive methods (average number of methods aware of)
Students with positive attitudes towards condoms
Students with the intention to use condoms
In 2020, Child Trends was awarded a three-year grant from the Office of Population Affairs to implement and rigorously evaluate El Camino. As part of this grant, Child Trends conducted a review of all project-related materials to ensure that materials are medically accurate, age-appropriate, trauma-informed, and user-centered. Based on feedback from trauma and medical experts, Child Trends revised materials to strengthen trauma-informed approaches.
These revisions include the following:
Past publications and related resources described the El Camino curriculum as a teen pregnancy prevention program. We now refer to El Camino as a sexual health promotion program. This phrasing more accurately describes El Camino’s goals of providing tools for high school-age young people to set their own goals, feel empowered to make their own decisions about their sexual health, and enjoy healthy relationships by learning about communication and consent.
Preliminary research on El Camino’s implementation suggests that young people responded well to the curriculum and that participation led to changes in their attitudes and knowledge. For example, 91% of students reported that El Camino had made them less likely to have sex, more likely to use contraception, or more likely to use a condom. Completion of the curriculum increased students’ contraceptive knowledge and led participants to feel more comfortable talking about sex and consent with their partners.
Child Trends surveyed students before and after their participation in El Camino. At the post-test survey, Child Trends asked students whether they thought El Camino had made them more or less likely to have sex and whether, if they were to have sex, the program had made them more or less likely to use contraception or a condom.
Results were very encouraging, with the vast majority of students (91%) reporting that El Camino had made them either less likely to have sex, more likely to use contraception, or more likely to use a condom. Students reported high satisfaction with the program, and about three quarters said it was “excellent” or “very good.”
From pre-test to post-test, students who participated in El Camino also reported significant changes in important attitudes and knowledge.
El Camino is available to download in English and in Spanish, at no cost. Materials include:
Check out these resources, briefs, reports, and presentations about El Camino.
Many sexual health programs transitioned to virtual implementation during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing an opportunity to learn about how virtual implementation of El Camino—a sexual health education program that focuses on Latino adolescents—compares to in-person implementation.
This study assessed differences in program attendance, engagement, and measures of quality for virtual versus in-person implementation of El Camino. Attendance was higher during in-person implementation and in schools where the organization implementing El Camino had a strong presence before the pandemic. Student perceptions of the program and facilitators were positive in both the virtual and in-person cohorts.
2025
Rates of unintended teen pregnancy remain high among Latino youth. This cluster randomized controlled trial evaluates the long-term impacts of El Camino, a sexual health education program for Latino youth based on the principles of positive youth development, on students’ sexual behavior and related outcomes. This randomized controlled trial of El Camino demonstrates favorable impacts on sexual behavioral precursors for all students and long-term sexual behavioral impacts among an important subsample of students.
2023
Many sexual health programs transitioned to virtual implementation during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing an opportunity to learn about how virtual implementation of El Camino—a sexual health education program that focuses on Latino adolescents—compares to in-person implementation. This study assessed differences in program attendance, engagement, and measures of quality for virtual versus in-person implementation of El Camino. Attendance was higher during in-person implementation and in schools where the organization implementing El Camino had a strong presence before the pandemic. Student perceptions of the program and facilitators were positive in both the virtual and in-person cohorts.
2023
This webinar from the Dibble Institute provided an overview of how wisdom about preventing teen births has accumulated over time. The presentation describes how intervention approaches have evolved and outlines considerations for future research and programs, including an overview of El Camino, a research-based sexual health promotion program developed by Child Trends.
2022
This poster presents the experiences of—and preliminary findings from—three implementation cohorts during the COVID-19 pandemic (Spring, Summer, and Fall 2021) using pre- and post-test surveys with participants.
2022
This brief describes El Camino, its structure and format, and preliminary results from a pilot testing of the program in seven schools and community-based organizations across six cities.
2019
This resource presents four key takeaways from the process of developing El Camino—which included reviews of research literature, analyses of nationally representative datasets, and interviews and focus groups with Latino parents and youth and with program developers and implementers—that can be applied to other youth-serving programs.
2019
This webinar describes the El Camino program’s background, focus, structure, and findings, and incorporates interactive virtual demonstrations of some of its activities.
2018
This resource provides an overview of the El Camino curriculum and early data from the pilot test and plans to scale up El Camino with new schools and classrooms.
2014
This brief highlights ways that adolescents’ individual attitudes and beliefs—as well as those of their family and parents, peers, and romantic partners—can help or hinder their desires to avoid teen pregnancy. Based on the findings outlined in this brief, Child Trends developed eight key recommendations for consideration in future intervention efforts.
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From 2015 to 2018, Child Trends developed and tested El Camino with more than 300 students in Washington, DC; East Chicago, IN; Tacoma, WA; Baltimore, MD; Los Angeles, CA; and Philadelphia, PA. The curriculum development and field testing was funded by The JPB Foundation.
Child Trends staff—Kristin Anderson Moore, Jennifer Manlove, Jenita Parekh, Bianca Faccio, Samuel Beckwith, and Lina Guzman—developed the curriculum in partnership with external advisors and curriculum writers Lori Rolleri and Linda Kaljee.
From 2020-2024, Child Trends conducted a multi-year evaluation of El Camino in Montgomery County, MD, in partnership with Identity, Inc. and the University of Maryland with funding from the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Population Affairs.