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Copyright 2023 Marline E. Pearson
Introduction
Relationship Smarts PLUS is a lively, 13-lesson, evidence-based relationship skills curriculum
for young teens. This curriculum embodies an innovative approach that addresses positive
youth development, life skills, healthy relationships, dating violence, and STI/HIV and pregnancy
prevention. These goals, typically addressed in separate programs, are integrated and embedded into
one comprehensive healthy relationship skills program.
Relationship Smarts PLUS builds assets and strengthens protective factors. It appeals to teenagers’
aspirations rather than merely emphasizing what they must avoid. It empowers youth with skills needed
to form and maintain healthy relationships, make wise sexual choices, and work toward their goals.
All youth, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, have attractions, emotions, and desires
for respectful, healthy relationships. All youth benefit from sexual delay and risk avoidance. All youth
need skills and knowledge to navigate their relationships and make wise sexual decisions. This is an
inclusive curriculum. Sexual and gender minority youth is increasingly becoming the common term.
But because it has not yet become widely adopted by youth themselves, we will be using the more
commonly recognized term LGBTQ+.
Building Models and Confidence for Healthy Relationships
Many young people today lack models of healthy relationships. A Child Trends survey of
disadvantaged youth reported that while respondents could list general qualities for healthy
relationships, and certainly aspired to have them, when asked if they actually saw many around them,
the answer was “no.”1 Sadly, they said they had little confidence they would be able to achieve a
healthy relationship despite their aspirations to develop one.
Relationship Smarts PLUS aims to build confidence and skills. It offers guidance on navigating the
world of romantic relationships. Teens learn that healthy relationships begin with the individual—
identifying personal strengths and weaknesses, understanding how one’s past influences the present,
and the importance of attending to one’s own growth and development.
Relationship Smarts PLUS offers knowledge of what a healthy relationship is and isn’t as well as
insights and skills for handling the early chemistry of attraction and choosing partners wisely. Teens
learn the building blocks of healthy relationships and are encouraged to identify relationship qualities
they find personally important. They are provided principles to guide them in early relationship
development. Frameworks to assess relationships are employed to help teens in relationship decision-
making. They are provided a low-risk strategy, Decide, Don’t Slide!, model to guide them in reducing
the potential for high-cost consequences of risky behaviors and attachment to problem people.
Relationship Smarts PLUS builds teens’ awareness of the red flags of unhealthy and abusive
relationships and ways to exit those relationships safely. Teens are encouraged to set boundaries and
practice drawing the line of respect at the first sign of disrespect in a relationship. Teens learn how to
handle breakups and move forward.
Copyright 2023 Marline E. Pearson
Introduction
Relationship Smarts PLUS is a lively, 13-lesson, evidence-based relationship skills curriculum
for young teens. This curriculum embodies an innovative approach that addresses positive
youth development, life skills, healthy relationships, dating violence, and STI/HIV and pregnancy
prevention. These goals, typically addressed in separate programs, are integrated and embedded into
one comprehensive healthy relationship skills program.
Relationship Smarts PLUS builds assets and strengthens protective factors. It appeals to teenagers’
aspirations rather than merely emphasizing what they must avoid. It empowers youth with skills needed
to form and maintain healthy relationships, make wise sexual choices, and work toward their goals.
All youth, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, have attractions, emotions, and desires
for respectful, healthy relationships. All youth benefit from sexual delay and risk avoidance. All youth
need skills and knowledge to navigate their relationships and make wise sexual decisions. This is an
inclusive curriculum. Sexual and gender minority youth is increasingly becoming the common term.
But because it has not yet become widely adopted by youth themselves, we will be using the more
commonly recognized term LGBTQ+.
Building Models and Confidence for Healthy Relationships
Many young people today lack models of healthy relationships. A Child Trends survey of
disadvantaged youth reported that while respondents could list general qualities for healthy
relationships, and certainly aspired to have them, when asked if they actually saw many around them,
the answer was “no.”1 Sadly, they said they had little confidence they would be able to achieve a
healthy relationship despite their aspirations to develop one.
Relationship Smarts PLUS aims to build confidence and skills. It offers guidance on navigating the
world of romantic relationships. Teens learn that healthy relationships begin with the individual—
identifying personal strengths and weaknesses, understanding how one’s past influences the present,
and the importance of attending to one’s own growth and development.
Relationship Smarts PLUS offers knowledge of what a healthy relationship is and isn’t as well as
insights and skills for handling the early chemistry of attraction and choosing partners wisely. Teens
learn the building blocks of healthy relationships and are encouraged to identify relationship qualities
they find personally important. They are provided principles to guide them in early relationship
development. Frameworks to assess relationships are employed to help teens in relationship decision-
making. They are provided a low-risk strategy, Decide, Don’t Slide!, model to guide them in reducing
the potential for high-cost consequences of risky behaviors and attachment to problem people.
Relationship Smarts PLUS builds teens’ awareness of the red flags of unhealthy and abusive
relationships and ways to exit those relationships safely. Teens are encouraged to set boundaries and
practice drawing the line of respect at the first sign of disrespect in a relationship. Teens learn how to
handle breakups and move forward.
