269326
WISE Lessons Learned
Monday, October 29, 2012
: 11:15 AM - 11:30 AM
Jenny Palmer, MA
,
School Engagement, Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina, Durham, NC
The landscape of sexuality education policy in North Carolina has changed, requiring the public health best practice of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in health classes for the first time since 1996. The 2009 Healthy Youth Act (HYA) law was an unfunded mandate, and NC schools faced a new approach in sexuality education with little to no support at the local level. The Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of NC (APPCNC) led the charge to advocate for and subsequently support the HYA, learning lessons along the way about how to institutionalize sexuality education. Since then, APPCNC has joined forces with the Working to Institutionalize Sexuality Education (WISE) initiative, a national initiative underway in 8 states. WISE capitalizes on lessons learned from 2009-2011 about how to work with schools—and it's not just about training teachers—to create a culture where CSE is valued, expected, and normalized. This session will explore the lessons, tools, and approaches North Carolina school health advocates have taken and are taking to the school districts that APPCNC is working with. We will discuss the role of planning, policy, and community engagement as crucial steps to accompany implementation of CSE in schools. We will provide an overview of the process we have taken in working directly with school systems to determine what their specific needs would be, and we will discuss the importance of identifying and cultivating relationships both in the schools and in the surrounding community.
Learning Areas:
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Learning Objectives: 1. Explain the role of planning, policy, and community engagement as crucial steps to accompany implementation of comprehensive sexuality education in schools.
2. Describe assessment process to measure the capacity of a school district to implement comprehensive sexuality education in a sustainable way.
3. Identify the importance of identifying and cultivating relationships both in the schools and in the surrounding community when institutionalizing comprehensive sexuality education in the public schools.
Keywords: Youth, Adolescent Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the WISE (Working to Institutionalize Sexuality Education) coordinator in North Carolina. I have worked in teen pregnancy prevention since 2002, both in program delivery and planning, and in school health since 2007.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines,
and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed
in my presentation.
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