Evaluation of the Doll Project in Greenland: Preventative health and sexuality education in schools

The Real Care Doll Program in Greenland intent to show students the amount of responsibility involved in caring for a baby. More than one thousands of predominantly eight- and ninth-grade students have been provided with an experience of being the parent of a ‘newborn infant’ by caring Real Care baby infant simulators. Throughout the 2 or 3 days, the students are responsible for the ‘baby’; an internal computer collects data about the students’ performance. Accompanying education helps students explore the physical, emotional, social, and financial consequences of parenthood. The general objective of the evaluation study is to determine the short-term impact of the family and sex education including evaluating the effectiveness of this education strategy to influence Greenland teenagers' perceptions of pregnancy and parenting. The study is a pre-/posttest questionnaire survey design supplemented with observations of teaching and personal interviews with the educators. Significant gains were found on the impact of the students perception of how early parenting affects their social and emotional life, and apprehension of the amount of responsibility involved in infant care. Parents and grandparents are – to follow the students – more prepared having children in early age “every child is welcome at any time”. There are significant differences between several monitored parameters in the capital and in selected towns at the west coast, as Greenland is in this area are divided into two value and norm separate parts. The evaluation study’s results show a substantial need for further competence development among the educators.