Background:
The Male Involvement Program (MIP) is a male-focused teenage pregnancy prevention program. It is sponsored by the Alameda County Public Health Department's Maternal, Paternal, Child and Adolescent Health Section and is funded by the California Department of Health Services' Office of Family Planning.

Objectives:
To identify a strategy for providing male adolescents with preconception health information and linking them to preconception care services.

Methods:
The Male Involvement Program involves an alliance of the Alameda County Public Health Department, La Clinica de La Raza, school-based health centers, local middle schools, high schools, and Big City Mountaineers. MIP focuses on reaching young males from 12-19 years of age to reduce teen pregnancies.
MIP has several program components: prevention education classes, informational presentations, male involvement/leadership development, clinical linkages, and peer education. The prevention education classes include two culturally- based prevention/education curricula that focus on male responsibility, pregnancy prevention and promotion of healthy relationships.
The male involvement/leadership development component of MIP involves the Young Men's Leadership Group. Young men are involved in leadership development activities that help them increase their self-esteem and provide them with skills to plan their futures. In conjunction with Big City Mountaineers, Leaderships Group participants are offered a wide-range of recreation-based activities that promote teen-adult mentoring relationships and promote lifelong physical activity. Participants also learn about services offered at school-based health centers and provide referrals to Family Planning Access, Care and Treatment (Family PACT) clinical services. They are trained to provide peer education presentations to 12-14 year old male and female middle-school students.

Results:
Eighty (80) young men were reached with prevention education classes, 156 middle schools students were reached by the Young Men's Leadership Group peer presentations, 15 young men participated in the leadership development program, and 59 young men accessed school-based health center services as a result of MIP referrals. School health centers served by MIP had the largest increase in male student utilization.

Conclusion and implications for practice:
Programs such as MIP provide a way to reach adolescent males to encourage the development of a reproductive life plan, to promote the importance of preconception health behaviors, and to promote the utilization of preconception care services.