The Abstinence & Marriage Education Partnership exists to ensure that every teenager in the country has the opportunity to hear a clearly reasoned, positive presentation on the benefits of abstinence until marriage and instruction on preparing for a healthy future marriage.
To this end, the Abstinence & Marriage Education Partnership is advancing a movement that inspires hope for a healthy future marriage. A&M provides training and resources for parents, teachers, pastors, youth workers, schools, churches, and community organizations in order to help youth understand the objective benefits to be realized by reserving all sexual activity and childbearing for marriage.
The Beginning
After counseling many families struggling with teen pregnancy and destructive behaviors, Scott Phelps joined ChicagoCare Pregnancy Center (now Caris) to develop and implement abstinence programs in public schools across Chicago and the Chicago suburbs. Seeing the incredible response to this message, Scott went to work for Kathleen Sullivan at Project Reality, a statewide program in Glenview where he served as National Program Director working to expand the reach of abstinence programs. During this time, Scott wrote two popular abstinence curricula: A.C. Green’s GamePlan and Navigator and worked to expand the reach of Project Reality nationally. Today these programs are now widely used around the country.
In April 2004, A&M Partnership was founded with a vision of providing training and support for educators around the country with the purpose of reaching every teenager in the country with the abstinence and marriage message. A&M Partnership is a leading provider of abstinence education certification trainings for educators having trained more than 4,000 educators nationwide.
In June 2005, A&M Resources was founded to provide the materials necessary for parents and educators to teach students the abstinence and marriage message themselves. Quest, Aspire, Excel, were developed to compliment for this purpose. Through the success of this program, A&M has become one of the leading providers of abstinence education programs around the country, training hundreds of teachers and providing materials for programs in all 50 states.
In December 2006 Scott and a small group of abstinence leaders co-founded the National Abstinence Education Association in Washington, D.C. for the purpose of strengthening support for abstinence education programs through federal policy. Scott served as co-founder and Chairman of the Board of the NAEA. Scott was actively involved in the development of the guidelines for the federal Community Based Abstinence Education Program contributing some of the core principles of the program.
In Fall 2008, Project Reality founder Kathleen Sullivan retired and asked Scott Phelps to carry on the good work she had begun bringing the Game Plan and Navigator programs into the A&M curricula series, enabling A&M to reach even more teenagers throughout the country. Kathleen Sullivan and Phyllis Schlafly pioneered the field of abstinence education and helped pave the way on a national level for abstinence education in public schools.
Today, A&M provides training and resources for pregnancy centers, public and private schools, churches, and community organizations throughout the country.
Hope For Tomorrow
“Your talks had a huge impact on me. I have been thinking a lot about my life and choices. You have changed my relationship with my girlfriend. I told her I wanted more communication. It was cool to hear about her life and her dreams. We also decided to wait on sex and it feels like a huge weight was lifted. Now I have goals, a better relationship with my girlfriend, and I’m happy. Thank you so much!” – Justin, High School Student
All around the country students like Justin are longing for a healthy, happy future but are unsure how to accomplish it. We believe every teen in the country deserves to hear a clearly reasoned, positive presentation on the benefits of abstinence so they can choose for themselves how they want to live. In order to reach every teen, we focus on equipping and empowering adults to present the message to teenagers in their community.
You can help us train parents, teachers, and community leaders by financially supporting A&M. Contact us today to learn more.