2024 Professional Development
for Sexual Health Education

Answering questions from the anonymous question box is a staple tool of effective sexual health education, but it takes practice! This workshop will outline the types of questions, whether asked live or from the question box, and strategies for answering in an age-appropriate and trauma-informed way.

What are youth asking with regards to sexual health? What assumptions, images, and stereotypes about gender and sexuality do their questions point to? During the workshop, participants will practice responding to real questions from real kids, receive feedback, and leave with increased confidence in their ability to respond to challenging questions.

Goals:

• Educators effectively answer students’ sexual health questions resulting in learners receiving tailored, age and developmentally appropriate information to increase their understanding of sexual health.
• Educators recognize the importance of effectively answering their students’ questions about sexual health to increase their understanding as well as affirm their right to learn about these topics from a trained professional.

Strategies to support schools, communicate with families and manage controversy about LGBTQ+ inclusive, age appropriate comprehensive sexual health education in the current climate of chaos.

Hate groups were radicalized against masks, vaccines, and anti-racism education and now they've mobilized against trans health care and inclusive sex and relationships education as their "wedge" issues in order to weaken already struggling public schools. Supporting inclusive CSE supports the well-being of all kids, and supporting public education supports the bedrock of democracy. Haters gonna hate, but let's not give them any easy wins, and continue to celebrate and protect our most vulnerable youth.

Unpacking the new Massachusetts Health and PE Frameworks

Haven’t updated your sex education since the 90s? You’re not alone. The updated Comprehensive Health and PE Frameworks are all new and very much improved! This is a great opportunity to update and revise your school's programming for the 21st century.

We’ll look at how the new Frameworks are structured, including guiding principles, topics and practices, the difference between content and skills based lesson planning, what existing curricula are available, and the benefits of doing a slow and steady overhaul vs ripping off the bandaid all at once. You’ll get lots of resources for supporting you and your district in curriculum, policy and training.
Head off the most common missteps with a well thought out program to support students, families and the community.

This 2-day training will give educators skills and confidence to facilitate Rights, Respect, Responsibility: a K-12 Sexuality Education Curriculum with their students. 

Day 1 includes:

• Creating a safe learning environment
• Understanding goals of sexual health education
• Trauma informed sexual health education
• Understanding relevant MA state laws and district policy
• Communicating with parents and caregivers
• Community engagement and communications best practices
• Answering FAQs

Day 2 includes:

• Grade specific teach backs and lesson modeling with constructive feedback
• Needs assessment for future PD priorities