Welcome to Choosing the Best, a leader in abstinence sex education curricula, training, and resources since 1993. Medically based, our curricula promote healthy relationships and have resulted in reducing teen sex by 47% versus a comparison group that did not receive the program. Over 2,500,000 students nationwide have completed our program.
What We Provide
Choosing the Best provides five age-appropriate abstinence curricula that are known for being easy to use, dynamic, and engaging. They’re also proven tools in transforming attitudes and behavior of teens about premarital sex (see Research Results). Video vignettes, real life case studies, role plays, interactive exercises and small-group discussions create a directed learning environment that encourages “self-discovery”. For more information, click on the programs below.
Middle School Programs:
High School Programs:
Teacher Training
The best results occur in the classroom when teachers are trained in the philosophy of abstinence education and the specifics of how to teach Choosing the Best. Choosing the Best offers teacher training certification in WAY, PATH, LIFE, JOURNEY, and SOULMATE. Click here for more info.
Parent Education
Parents are the single most important factor in a teen’s sexual decision-making. Choosing the Best offers a parent education program as well as a parent book that help parents empower their teens to choose abstinence.”
How We Started
In 1992 Bruce and Donna Cook served as chairpersons of the Health and Safety Committee at their son's school. A sex education program for the middle school was identified as one of the pressing and critical needs. Parent and faculty surveys indicated an overwhelming majority desired an abstinence curriculum. Working with health experts, school counselors, educators, and parents, Bruce developed Choosing the Best, which was field-tested in his son's class. The reaction from the students, parents, and teachers was enthusiastically and overwhelmingly positive.
In response to requests from other schools for the curriculum, Bruce and Donna founded Choosing the Best, Inc. in 1993. Bill Roper, M.D. and former director of the CDC, chaired CTB’s Medical Advisory Board. In 1994 Project Reality used CTB in 49 public schools involving more than 6,000 students as part of an evaluation study conducted by the Northwestern University School of Medicine. Results from the study indicated that 75% of the students completing the course were choosing to be abstinent until marriage, with 60% of the sexually active students choosing to return to abstinence.
With the growing problems of teen pregnancies and the spread of STDs among teens in Georgia, CTB was asked by former Senate Majority Leader and now Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue to develop training and community programs promoting abstinence. In 1998 CTB received a multi-year contract from the Georgia Department of Education to provide abstinence-focused teacher training conferences and to write a state abstinence curriculum for grades 6-9. The latest 2005 research, conducted on three Choosing the Best programs, indicates that CTB decreases the initiation of teen sex by 47% vs. a comparison group that did not receive the programs. Click here for more info.
Choosing the Best is comprised of Choosing the Best Inc., a 501 c(3) non-profit formed to provide community-based abstinence education and training through grants and contracts, and Choosing the Best Publishing LLC. Choosing the Best Publishing produces, markets, and sells abstinence curricula to school districts and community groups nationwide.
Recognitions and Awards:
- 2004 Department of Health and Human Services three-year SPRANS (Special Projects of Regional and National Significance) Grant Award.
- 2001 Department of Health and Human Services three-year SPRANS (Special Projects of Regional and National Significance) Grant Award.
- Georgia Department of Education five-year contract to provide abstinence training to 1,000 teachers in the state of Georgia.
- Alabama Department of Health contract to provide abstinence education and training in CTB LIFE in 30 sites throughout Alabama.
- Oklahoma Department of Human Services contract to provide abstinence education to teachers and educators in 15 sites throughout the state.
- Georgia Legislature grant to conduct a community-wide abstinence program in Columbus, Georgia.
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