A continuous quality improvement process to create a sexual health curriculum for systems-involved youth

This manuscript outlines the continuous quality improvement (CQI) process used to assess the Need to Know (N2K) teen pregnancy prevention program, consisting of six interactive 60-min modules for systems-involved youth (SIY) (youth in foster care, juvenile justice, or residential treatment centers) and one 120-min module for caregivers of SIY. There were ten implementation cycles with youth at two partner sites and six implementation cycles with caregivers at three partner sites. Purposeful sampling was used to select the sample of SIY at each partner site. Inclusion criteria for youth participants: English-speaking SIY who were not pregnant and were not parenting. Need to Know-Caregiver (N2K-C) was embedded as part of professional development training at partner sites. From July 2019 to March 2020, N2K-Youth and N2K-C were implemented with 102 youth and 84 caregivers, respectively. CQI areas of improvement included: streamlining content; increasing the number of activities; accommodating youth comprehension levels; increasing trauma-informed approaches; including mindfulness strategies; meeting youth where they are emotionally; improving facilitator preparedness to implement programming.