Why Parents Matter!: The conceptual basis for a community-based HIV prevention program for the parents of African American youth

The Parents Matter! Program (PMP) is a community-based family intervention designed to promote positive parenting and effective parent-child communication about sexuality and sexual risk reduction. Its ultimate goal is to reduce sexual risk behavior among adolescents. PMP offers parents instruction and guidance in general parenting skills related to decreased sexual risk behavior among youth (e.g., relationship building, monitoring) and sexual communication skills necessary for parents to effectively convey their values and expectations about sexual behavior-as well as critical HIV, STD, and pregnancy prevention messages-to their children. We briefly review the literature concerning parental influences on adolescent sexual risk behavior and present the conceptual model and theoretical foundation upon which PMP is based.