Under the terms of the 2016 Healthy Youth Act, the State of California requires comprehensive sexual health education for all high schoolers. However, youth in Los Angeles County juvenile detention centers and in underserved communities are not guaranteed to have access to such vital information.

During the summer of 2022, we worked with formerly incarcerated and justice system-impacted writing fellows to create the characters and narratives. In fall, we filmed in Baldwin Park, California, and on campus at UCLA.

Throughout winter and spring 2023, we worked with community organizations that support justice system-impacted young people to pilot our intervention. Results from qualitative and quantitative data analysis indicate favorable outcomes.

Key Findings

At the immediate post-intervention time point, researchers observed significant and positive increases in participants’ perceived confidence to negotiate condom use with sexual partners, use condoms themselves, and communicate with sexual partners.

When asked about their perceptions of Up to Us, 68% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that the videos changed how they think about their sexual health and 79% agreed or strongly agreed that they are interested in seeing additional episodes. Almost all participants (90%) rated the overall quality of the videos as very good or excellent and the same proportion said that they would recommend the video to other people. A full report exploring quantitative findings is coming soon.

Qualitative findings are discussed in our 6-page report.

View Qualitative Findings Report

To learn more, get in touch with us at the UCLA Art & Global Health Center.

Screenplays by Francisco Aviles Pino in collaboration with nine justice system-impacted writing fellows. Films directed by Chloë de Carvalho and produced by Cut and Cue.