In 2010, the Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI) received a 5-year grant from OAH to replicate and rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of Becoming a Responsible Teen (BART), an evidence-based sexual education curriculum. The Policy & Research Group (PRG), an independent research firm, was contracted by LPHI to conduct the rigorous evaluation.
BART is a group-level behavioral skills training sexual education intervention that aims to reduce HIV risk for African-American adolescents [24]. Implementation fidelity requirements for BART mandate that the intervention be delivered to youth 14–18 years of age in small gender-specific groups of between 5 and 15 persons. BART is intended to be delivered in eight 2-hour sessions over the course of 8 weeks; each session should be facilitated by a team of two health educators, one male and one female [25]. LPHI renamed the program for their implementation setting to 4Real Health.