Community Building and Legislative Advocacy for Comprehensive Sexual Health Education

During the 2011 Legislative Session of the Illinois General Assembly, the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH) is sponsoring a grassroots and legislative advocacy effort in support of sexual health education in Illinois public schools. The goal is the successful passage of a bill requiring any public school who provides sexual health education to use a medically accurate, evidence-based, and age-appropriate curriculum.

ICAH builds their approach through a combination of scientific research and social work community practice theories and frameworks. Utilizing a participatory Community Circle process co-facilitated by ICAH staff and youth organizers, community allies are encouraged to assess the health of their own communities, discover the impact of community institutions on the messages youth receive about sexual health, and consider the impact of abstinence-only-until-marriage policies and instructional programs on the multiple facets of adolescent health. ICAH then provides them with the tools to advocate for a more comprehensive approach and lobby their legislators to support a sexual health education bill.

This session will share the processes and lessons learned from ICAH's Sexual Health Community Circle Initiative and will present preliminary outcome evaluation findings of participants' changes in knowledge of adolescent sexual health and likelihood to engage in grassroots and legislative advocacy in support of a comprehensive sexual health education bill.