Suzanne M. Johnson Vickberg, Ph.D., Director of Programs and Evaluation
Planned Parenthood Federation of America

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Family communication about sexuality is an important factor in young people's healthy sexual development, but families do not always find it easy to communicate about sexuality. Planned Parenthood affiliates and other community organizations sometimes try to address this need by conducting educational programs for parents and their children or teens. It is important to evaluate programs to assess their effectiveness with your community. Evaluation results can help you revise the program for the next group. Tips on evaluation follow.

• In parent-child workshops, at least two groups are involved in the evaluation process (parents and young people), and these groups will likely need separate evaluation tools.
• If one objective is to increase family communication about sexuality, the evaluation should go beyond assessing knowledge levels to determine how the program affected family dynamics or communication among family members.
• A useful post-workshop question is to ask teens whether they learned anything new about their parents and vice versa. Another is whether they feel any differently about bringing up sexuality issues after the workshop than before.
• Homework, in the form of some follow-up questions (to be mailed back to you), can assist in maintaining the connection between parents and children, and give them reasons to raise sexuality issues later.
• The evaluation might also include contacting family members later to see if they are communicating more since participating in the program.

The following questions may be included in an evaluation tool for young people. Ask them to think about the parent or guardian to whom they feel the closest while answering the questions.

1. How often do you talk with your parent or guardian about issues related to sexuality?
   
   Response Options: a) Never or almost never; b) A few times a year; c) About once a month; d) About once a week; e) Almost every day
   
   
2.  How comfortable do you feel when talking to your parent or guardian about issues related to sexuality?
   
   Response Options: a) Very uncomfortable; b) Uncomfortable; c) Neutral—not uncomfortable or comfortable; d) Comfortable; e) Very comfortable; f) I do not have conversations with my parent or guardian about issues related to sexuality.
   
   
3. When it comes to talking with your parent or guardian about issues related to sexuality, which of the following best describes how you feel?
   
   Response Options: a) I do not feel I can talk with them at all; b) I feel there are only a few things I can talk with them about; c) I feel I can talk with them about some things, but not others; d) I feel I can talk with them about most things; e) I feel that can talk with them about absolutely anything.
   
   
4. When you have conversations with your parent or guardian about issues related to sexuality, how helpful are they?

Response Options: a) Very unhelpful; b) Unhelpful; c) Neutral—not helpful or unhelpful; d) Helpful; e) Very helpful; f) I do not have conversations with my parent or guardian about issues related to sexuality.

Questions for parents may be similar to those for youth (with the referent changed from "your parent or guardian" to "your child or teen"). Question four might be changed to say, "When you have conversations with your child or teen about issues related to sexuality, how helpful do you think they find the conversations?" Ask parents to report their communication with each of their children separately, especially if the children vary greatly in age. Other possible questions for parents include the following:

1. When talking with your child or teen about sexuality, how confident are you that you can answer their questions accurately?
   
   Response Options: a) Not at all confident; b) Somewhat confident; c) Confident; d) Very confident; e) I do not talk with my child about sexuality.
   
   
2. How confident do you feel that your child or teen would come to you if she or he had a question about sexuality?

Response Options: a) Not at all confident; b) Somewhat confident; c) Confident; d) Very confident