Street Smart

Street Smart is a multi-session group-level HIV prevention intervention. The target population of this intervention is homeless, transient and high-risk youth. The majority of the sessions address improving the participants’ social skills, particularly assertiveness and coping, through exercises that teach them to identify their emotional and behavioral reactions and unrealistic expectations in situations with potential risk for HIV transmission.

The small group format permits collective support for safer behaviors and behavior change to be developed and mobilized. Information about HIV prevention may be conveyed through video clips and artwork where participants develop their own soap opera dramatizations, public service announcements, commercials, and rap songs about HIV prevention. In addition to the group sessions, private sessions with a health educator are included to give youth the opportunity to assess their own barriers to safer sex and discuss their dysfunctional attitudes and behavior patterns.