Evaluating the Sharing Stories youth theatre program: an interactive theatre and drama‐based strategy for sexual health promotion among multicultural youth

Abstract

Issue addressed: Rates of sexually transmissible infections among young people are high, and there is a need for innovative, youth-focused sexual health promotion programs. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Sharing Stories youth theatre program, which uses interactive theatre and drama-based strategies to engage and educate multicultural youth on sexual health issues. The effectiveness of using drama-based evaluation methods is also discussed. Methods: The youth theatre program participants were 18 multicultural youth from South East Asian, African and Middle Eastern backgrounds aged between 14 and 21 years. Four sexual health drama scenarios and a sexual health questionnaire were used to measure changes in knowledge and attitudes. Results: Participants reported being confident talking to and supporting their friends with regards to safe sex messages, improved their sexual health knowledge and demonstrated a positive shift in their attitudes towards sexual health. Drama-based evaluation methods were effective in engaging multicultural youth and worked well across the cultures and age groups. Conclusions: Theatre and drama-based sexual health promotion strategies are an effective method for up-skilling young people from multicultural backgrounds to be peer educators and good communicators of sexual health information. Dramabased evaluation methods are engaging for young people and an effective way of collecting data from culturally diverse youth. So what?This study recommends incorporating interactive and arts-based strategies into sexual health promotion programs for multicultural youth. It also provides guidance for health promotion practitioners evaluating an arts-based health promotion program using arts-based data collection methods.

Supporting health promotion practitioners to undertake evaluation for program development

“…They may also be more culturally acceptable when used as community engagement tools for groups where English is not the native language or where literacy may be low. In our experience, funding agencies are increasingly open to the validity of these data and their potential for wider reach, particularly in vulnerable populations [ 43 , 44 ]. The outputs of arts-based methods (for example, photography exhibitions, theatre performances) are also powerful channels for disseminating results and have the potential to influence policy if accepted as rigorous forms of evidence [ 42 ].…”

What Works? Prevention and Control of Sexually Transmitted Infections and Blood-Borne Viruses in Migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia Living in High-Income Countries: A Systematic Review

“…The populations in the selected studies were migrants from SSA, NEA and SSA, living in high-income countries with universal health coverage. Of the 16 studies, four were conducted in Australia [46,52,53,54], three each in the Netherlands [44,47,50], Canada [55,57,58] and Italy [45,48,49] and one study in Spain [43], New Zealand [51] and Germany, respectively [56]. Of the 16 studies, two used qualitative methods [51,58].…”

Feasibility and acceptability of theatrical and visual art to deliver fertility education to young adults

“…Past research has shown that the simple provision of information was not sufficient for adolescents to learn (Boivin et al, 2018a(Boivin et al, , 2018b. Art has been used effectively in sex education (Roberts et al, 2017) and was considered a potentially engaging approach for fertility education. One reason art works is because it engages in a different way from using the standard narrative such as 'hello, I am Mary and I have fertility problems.…”

“…The FEI want to determine how we can engage young adults to think about their future and if this involves having a family. The aim of this project is to determine the feasibility and acceptability of using art to deliver fertility education to adolescents in schools as this method can enrich learning and educational experiences (Roberts et al, 2017).…”