sex ed

Advocates for Youth – Sex Education Lesson Plans

/ Madison D'Avella

Advocates for Youth is an organization that is dedicated to improving sexual and reproductive health among adolescents and securing the rights of young people.

Advocates for Youth recognizes that sex education should equip people with tools to make informed decisions about sex and relationships, instead of withholding information and telling young people not to have sex.

The organization works with AMAZE to publish animated videos that provide children and adolescents with accessible and age-appropriate sexual information. More information about AMAZE can be found here.

Advocates for Youth offers a K-12 sex education curriculum specifically for students with intellectual disabilities that includes all of the topics the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has labeled as essential. The curriculum emphasizes the importance of rights, respect, and responsibility, and covers topics such as gender identity, race, and healthy relationships. This curriculum can be found on the Advocates for Youth website, linked here.

In addition to making efforts to improve sexual education in the classroom, Advocates for Youth hosts virtual and in-person events for people interested in learning more! Some of their previous events involved discussions about STIs, abortion, and consent.

Sex Ed for Self-Advocates

/ Sarah Durante

The Organization for Autism Research (OAR) was founded by parents and grandparents. OAR strives to use science to address social, educational, and treatment concerns in the Autism community. Their mission is to fund research, provide useful information and resources to the community, as well as hold programs to improve quality of life for individuals with Autism.

The OAR has put together an online guide for sexuality and sex ed. This guide is self-paced and intended for people on the Autism Spectrum aged 15 and older. This guide consists of nine modules: Public vs Private, Puberty, Healthy Relationships, Consent, Dating 101, Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity, Am I Ready?, Sexual Activity, Online Relationships and Safety. Each module consists of a video overview and 10-15 smaller sections.

This guide is completely free and can be accessed at the link below:

Sex Ed

SHEIDD Project

/ Sarah Durante

The Sexual Health for Individuals with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities (SHEIDD) project promotes comprehensive and accessible sex education for youth with with intellectual or developmental disabilities. They’ve interviewed individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and found out what they want from sexual education. They’ve co-created guidelines for educators, parents, peers, or other individuals associated with someone with a DD (which they call “support people). These guidelines are holistic, and they help individuals understand themselves, what their rights are, how to express themselves, and how to build healthy relationships. The SHEIDD project also provides resources, trainings, and teaching tools on their website. They partner with various organizations around the country and help to holistically educate individuals with disabilities.

These guidelines are free to anyone, and can be accessed at the link below:

https://multco.us/school/sexual-health-youth-developmental-disabilities

Oak Hill Positive Choices

/ Sarah Durante

Oak Hill Center for Relationship and Sexuality Education (CRSE) looks to educate and increase access to important sexual health information through various preventative programs. They also aim to decrease the vulnerability to sexual abuse that the intellectual/developmental disability community endures. They offer different curriculums, workbooks, parent/caregiver workshops, professional development workshops and therapeutic education.

Their most recent curriculum, Positive Choices, is designed for secondary students and aims to improve critical judgement about sexual health and relationship safety. On top of this, students will learn life skills, safe boundaries, women’s and men’s health, healthy relationships, and sexuality. This curriculum can be purchased on the Oak Hills website and costs $430. The teacher’s manual can be purchased for $180, and the student workbook is $25. Information is linked below: http://relationshipandsexuality.oakhillct.org/positive-choices/

Open Future Learning

/ Sarah Durante

Open Future Learning is a company that offers a wide variety of online training for staff, or anyone else working with individuals with disabilities. They offer modules in abuse prevention, communication, advocacy, and many more topics. They have staff training modules, 30 minute programs, and an audio learning module. Membership can range from $112-$2263 per month, depending on the amount of active users. Linked below is Open Future’s Homepage.

https://www.openfuturelearning.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=login.home

Sex Ed Rescue

/ Sarah Durante

Properly educating children on sex, puberty, and many other related topics can be challenging for parents. Many parents struggle with how they should speak to their child about these topics, and when the time is right. Sex Ed Rescue is a YouTube channel designed to educate parents on how to talk to their kids about these topics. This channel includes instructional videos, Q&A’s, children’s book reviews, and many other educational resources. It is a great resource to help parents educate their children on sex. It also helps to create a more age-appropriate environment for the child, and encourages comfortable communication between the child and the parent.

Linked below is the channel’s introduction video and the channel’s homepage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fz3vRPVENE
Sex Ed Rescue: Homepage

Teen Talk Adapted for All Abilities

/ Sarah Durante

Health Connection is a company that designs sex education curriculum for teachers. Teen Talk: Adapted for All Abilities is an adaptation of their Teen Talk curriculum, and is designed to cater to 7th to 12th grade students with disabilities. This is an adaptation of This curriculum focuses on tolerance, respect, and personal values articulation. It addresses topics like sexuality, gender roles, and reproductive healthcare. This curriculum also uses gender inclusive language. The Adapted for All Abilities can be purchased for $345 (plus tax). You can find more information at the link below:

https://www.health-connected.org/teen-talk-aaa

Sexual Safety Series Resource Flyers

/ Kaitlyn Myers

These resource flyers range from sex education to online safety. Some of the resources are Delaware specific but email us if you’d like one updated for your area. You can download PDFs here:

Sexual Safety Series Resource Flyers:Download

Talking About Sex: Sexuality Education for Learners with Disabilities

/ sarahlcurtiss

From the Publishers:

Key social and emotional milestones during adolescence are often directly related to the abilities to initiate and maintain intimate relationships, maintain physically maturing bodies, and manage personal sexuality. Most adolescents with developmental disabilities have particular difficulty expressing sexuality in satisfying ways, consequently facing issues such as limited intimate relationships, low self-esteem, increased social isolation, deregulated emotional maintenance, reduced sexual functioning, and limited sexual health.
Appropriate sexual knowledge assists not only in achieving personal fulfillment, but protection from mistreatment, abuse, unplanned pregnancies, or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). It also works to help solve problems of loneliness and problems with self-esteem.
This book will address this but also much more. Issues of physical and cognitive development will be discussed, including appropriate sexual development/urges and brain development, and innate similarities and differences of sexuality that could occur between people with autism spectrum disorders and intellectual or developmental disabilities, including the complexities of physical disabilities. The authors will also consider special considerations for group homes and recreational facilities, and specifically focus on concepts of ethics and models of consent (medical, legal, social, and educational), as well as how to deal with uncertainty.

High School Human Sexuality 101 Week 6- Power in Relationships

/ jpbrown2 / 1 Comment

Power in Relationships The focus of week 6 was to better understand power relationships. During this week, the participants worked together on a activity that helped them to learn about power and control in relationships and specifically the benefits of having more power, benefits of having less power, drawbacks to having more power, and the drawbacks to having less power. The main concept that we were teaching with this activity is that there should be a balance when it comes to power. We first brainstormed  ideas on what it meant to have power in a relationship. After that, the participants discussed how different situations could be red flags that a relationship is not safe and we had them place those on the outside of the circle. We superimposed a circle onto our original brainstorming to reinforce this concept (using the powerpoint project and a dry erase board).

At the end of group we played a “Would you Rather” game to help them tune into how much power and control they prefer to have in relationships.  Students are asked about different relationships where there is a power difference (eg. parent-child). If they would prefer the more powerful option they take a step forward, the less and they stand still.  In my experience, individuals with disabilities are much more likely to choose a majority of less powerful positions in relationships. Food for thought.

For more information and activities on this topic see Adult Human Sexuality Week 5- Power Relationships

This Week’s Materials

Week 6 Slides

Parent Letter Week 6

YouTube Educational Resources: Healthchannel, Sexplanations, and CSPH

/ sarahlcurtiss

YouTube has a lost of great sexuality education resources but it can be hard to find among all of the “not safe for work” content.  Here’s a few channels and videos that might be useful.  One of the most difficult tasks sex educators report is explaining intimate acts.  This can be uncomfortable and difficult so I’ve tried to focus on these difficult to teach topics.  The videos may not be the best fit for the person/people you’re working with, but they can give you an idea where to start.  The channels also have great resources for expanding your own education on sexuality topics.

 

The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health (CSPH) has a lot of great videos.  Is one of my favorite cites.  In addition to having direct information they also have videos for parents (“Use Your Words” videos).

Healthchannel is a YouTube channel with short videos on a variety of health care issues including sexual health resources including a few I’ve listed below.  The videos aren’t prefect.  They don’t feature animations with people with disabilities and focus on heterosexual couples, but they give very precise, clear information.

Sexplanations is another YouTube channel.  They have mini episodes on human sexuality topics from shared sexual behavior to STDs to anatomy.  Again the videos aren’t perfect.  They move a little too quickly than I would like, but I’ve selected a few I think could be helpful.  They could also be good to expand your own understanding of various topics.