Personal Responsibility Education Program
Healthy Life Skills

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines life skills as "abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life." Specific skills and everyday demands may vary throughout the course of adolescence and across different sociocultural groups. Life skills include, but are not limited to, communication, decision-making, coping, self-management, goal-setting, and avoidance of unhealthy behaviors.

Example of Activities Relating to Healthy Life Skills

• Self-Efficacy and Motivation
• Strengths-Based programming
• Interactive Learning/Applying Skills Outside of Classroom
• Community-involved approaches
• Age-appropriate skills-based programming

Tips on Incorporating Healthy Life Skills Activities

• Incorporate self-efficacy, self-esteem, and self-determination concepts
• Utilize a strengths-based approach
• Provide youth with opportunities to apply life skills to real-world scenarios
• Family members, teachers, and peers can serve as role models and continue to reinforce the skills learned after the program is finished
• Implement booster, or follow-up, programs
• Understand appropriate timing
• Monitor and evaluate programs

The above was taken from: Family and Youth Services Bureau. Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, PREP Adult Preparation Subjects - Resource Guide (PDF), 2021

PREP Curricula Incorporating Healthy Life Skill Activities and/or Lessons

• Teen Outreach Program (TOP)
• Making Proud Choices
• Live It!
• All 4 You!
• Be Proud! Be Responsible! Be Protective!
• FLASH
• IN-clued
• Project MARS
• Sexuality for All Abilities
• Safer Sex Intervention

Healthy Life Skills Resources and Articles

• Botvin LifeSkills Training (LST)
  A research-validated substance abuse prevention program proven to reduce the risks of alcohol, tobacco, drug abuse, and violence by targeting the major social and psychological factors that promote the initiation of substance use and other risky behaviors. Botvin LifeSkills Training promotes healthy alternatives to risky behavior.
• The Pandemic and Kids' Mental Health
  The social isolation, uncertainty, and missed milestones brought by the pandemic left millions of children anxious and confused. The Pandemic and Kids' Mental Health offers parents and other caring adults information, skills, and actual words they can use to engage children in resilience-building conversations.
• Positive Youth Development Positive youth development is a holistic approach that focuses on creating a developmentally appropriate learning setting for young people.
• Boys and Girls Clubs of America Health and Wellness Programs
  Community-based programs that develop the capacity of school-aged youth to engage in positive behaviors to nurture their well-being, set personal goals, and grow into self-sufficient adults.
• IPSY Life Skills Program A comprehensive school-based program for 5–7 grade students to prevent adolescent use of legal substances based on the World Health Organization's life skills approach.
• Native STAND - Healthy Native Youth
  Native STAND is adapted from STAND—Students Together Against Negative Decisions—a multi-session, peer educator curriculum developed for youth. It is theoretically based – using both the Stages of Change and the Diffusion of Innovations Model – and was evaluated in four Bureau of Indian Education schools. Its approach is comprehensive and skills-based, and includes STD, HIV, teen pregnancy prevention, drug and alcohol use, and dating violence. Sessions focus on positive personal development, including team building, diversity, self-esteem, goals and values, decision making, negotiation and refusal skills, peer educator skills, and effective communications.