Education, Training, and Research Associates

Innovation Hub Name: ETR’s RYSE Innovation Hub: Reimagining Young People’s Sexual Health Equity

Innovation Hub Type: Hybrid

Project Overview: Education, Training, and Research Associates (ETR) will implement the RYSE Innovation Hub: Reimagining Young People’s Sexual Health Equity. This project will support an expansive community of innovators to develop, refine, and test youth-driven innovations that promote young people’s sexual health and reduce teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and their associated risk factors. Rooted in ETR’s Health Equity Framework, the RYSE Innovation Hub is driven by our vision that all young people have access to the personal agency, resources, and opportunities needed to achieve the best possible sexual well-being. Using a phased, dynamic, and equity-focused approach, the RYSE Innovation Hub will support multiple cohorts of innovators to progress through ETR’s Concept to Scale Pipeline, a hybrid innovation model. Innovation Development Teams (IDTs) will receive funding and technical assistance to explore, prototype, pilot, test, and package innovations that can be rigorously evaluated and/or broadly disseminated. ETR’s RYSE Innovation Hub will work with youth throughout the project to recruit and support diverse IDTs that 1) prioritize and reflect young people who have been underserved in the adolescent sexual health field and 2) demonstrate a commitment to innovations that address inequities and the social determinants of health. ETR’s RYSE Hub will work with innovators to apply the Youth Engagement Principles – a framework co-developed with youth and youth-serving adults – to address the gap in elevating youth voice in the development, delivery, and evaluation of sexual health innovations.

Through a customized support plan and a Learning Collaborative, IDTs will receive technical assistance on topics such as developing and testing theories of change, Trauma-Informed Youth-Centered Health Design, social entrepreneurship, and meaningful youth engagement. 

Anticipated total number of Innovation Development Teams (IDTs) to be supported through the project: 4-6 IDT's per cohort, 4 cohorts total in Years 2-5