SRAE Expansion project - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Project Title: Choosing to Excel Sexual Risk Avoidance Education Expansion Project Applicant: Prim-n-Proper, Inc., dba Choosing to Excel (C2E), IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) Address: P.O. Box 1979, Conway, AR 72033 | Website: choosingtoexcel.org Point of Contact: Thelma Moton, Executive Director | (501) 269-4166 | tmoton2@sbcglobal.net Funding Opportunity: HHS-2026-ACF-ACYF-SR-0012 | Request: $450,000 annually for 36 months Needs to Be Addressed. Arkansas ranks second in the nation for teen births, and the need is even greater in the project's service area. Teen birth rates in Faulkner (27.4), Conway (34.3), and Desha (45.5) all exceed the Arkansas rate (22.2) and the national rate (13.1) per 1,000 females ages 15–19. These communities also experience elevated poverty and family instability, increasing adolescents' vulnerability to unhealthy behaviors. Behind these statistics are young people with hopes and potential who need more than information. They need trusted adults, practical life skills, positive role models, and consistent encouragement to believe in a future worth protecting. Proposed Project and Population. Prim-n-Proper, Inc., doing business as Choosing to Excel (C2E), proposes to serve approximately 3,500 youth annually and approximately 10,500 over three years in Faulkner, Conway, and Desha Counties, Arkansas. Participants will be students in grades 7–12, primarily ages 10–19. Given the region's elevated rates of teen pregnancy, poverty, family instability, and other risk factors, the project will prioritize outreach to youth who face the greatest barriers to healthy development, including rural and economically disadvantaged youth, students in Alternative Learning Environments (ALEs), youth with foster care experience, pregnant and parenting adolescents, and other youth needing additional support. Program Approach. C2E will implement Choosing the Best (CTB) with fidelity as the classroom foundation for medically accurate, age-appropriate Sexual Risk Avoidance Education addressing the statutory A–F requirements. Instruction will promote abstinence from nonmarital sexual activity, healthy relationships and marriage, self-regulation, refusal skills, personal responsibility, and resistance to sexual coercion and other risk behaviors. The Success Sequence will connect education, employment, marriage before childbearing, self-sufficiency, and family stability. Classroom instruction is the entry point to C2E's multi-level Positive Youth Development model, which extends learning through mentoring, weekly small groups, Youth Leadership, positive adult role models, family engagement, career exploration, and summer programming. Expected Impact. Participants are expected to demonstrate increase SRAE knowledge, refusal and relationship skills, self-regulation, trusted-adult connections, educational and career aspirations, and future orientation while reducing behaviors associated with sexual risk. C2E's goal extends beyond prevention: to help young people see and pursue a future that includes education, meaningful employment, healthy marriage, responsible parenting, self-sufficiency, and strong families.
