Teaching Sexual Health with Confidence!
Comprehensive sexual health education includes a wide range of topics including
birth control, STI protection, when or if to have sex, puberty, consent, healthy
relationships and more. This approach is designed to give students the skills
to make safe, healthy and informed sexual decisions. Without comprehensive
sexual health information, children remain at risk for negative health outcomes
including unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted and blood borne infections.
Programs that teach about contraception and protection from STIs don’t encourage
teens to have sex earlier or more often. In fact, programs that teach about
abstinence and safer sex often help teens postpone sex. It’s completely normal
and common to be nervous when talking about sexuality topics in the classroom.
The personal relationship that you have with your students makes you an
effective educator of this information.
There’s no ‘perfect’ way to approach sexuality education and you won’t know
all the answers - but you do need to know where to find them! That’s where TeachingSexualHealth.ca comes in.
The teacher portal is an Alberta Education authorized resource which provides comprehensive
sexual health information for teachers to build their confidence and knowledge
to teach the curriculum.
Here are a few highlights from the website:
We also provide free lesson plans to download for grades 4-CALM and for
teaching differing abilities. You can use our resource
finder to search by grade, topic, language, or resource type. All lesson
plans include curriculum outcomes, material lists, teacher notes and tips!
At TeachingSexualHealth.ca
you will find information to help you get ready to teach the human sexuality
curriculum, how to be more comfortable with the curriculum, and what you need
to know about notifying parents.
We also offer a FREE online teacher workshop
4 times per year, which is designed to increase teachers’ comfort, knowledge
and skills in teaching the human sexuality curriculum. Each workshop runs for 3 weeks and teachers
can access the content at their convenience. Once completed, teachers will
receive a certificate for 12 hours of online sexual health education training.
Topics covered include:
·
Instructional methods & curriculum outcomes
·
Answering student questions
·
Sexual health information & resources
·
The School Act & best practice guidelines
·
Notifying & supporting parents
If you do involve community resources or guest speakers,
it’s important to remain involved in all aspects of the program/presentation
and learning activities. Here is a guide for choosing high quality health and
wellness resources: https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/info/school/csh/if-sch-csh-guide-for-choosing-health-resources.pdf
As a teacher, you play an important role in providing sexual health
education. By giving students the skills they need to make safe and healthy decisions, you can positively
impact your students’ lifelong health and well-being.
If you are attending the 2019 HPEC Conference this May in Red Deer,
learn more at our presentation:
Sex Ed: How to Answer Student Questions
Friday, 2:00 pm Session C
We look forward to seeing you there!
For questions or comments, contact tsh@ash.ca
Follow us!
Twitter: @teachsexhealth
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teachsexhealth/
Submitted by: Alberta Health Services
