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Challenges, Process Monitoring and Achievements In Implementing School-based Sex Education within A Politically Conservative State: Implications for Organizational Change
Since 1988, Georgia law requires school-based sex education (SE), including instruction on sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV/AIDS, with guidance from GA Board of Education. Georgia law authorizes local school boards to select any type of sex education (comprehensive sex education to abstinence-only). However, most schools do not understand their SE options and generally select abstinence-only largely because of perceived controversy and the historically conservative political climate in Georgia. In 2009, Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential (GCAPP) joined the Working to Institutionalize Sex Education (WISE), a national initiative that focuses on institutionalizing school-based SE in states with favorable SE policies. Five interrelated phases known as the WISE Method for CSE Institutionalization arose from the experiences of 7 initial WISE states. Using the WISE Method, over 186,293 students have received new and improved comprehensive sex education (CSE) in their schools nationally. We applied the WISE CSE method in Georgia, where GCAPP collaborated with local partners (e.g., Public Health, Family Connection, and Communities in Schools) and successfully trained over 200 teachers and reached over 18,000 students/ year across different school districts in diverse urban, suburban and rural communities. This presentation will share lessons learned from GCAPP’s four-years of CSE program integration in Georgia schools. We will discuss challenges, process monitoring, iterative progress, and key strategies for successful CSE program implementation and outcomes despite working in a politically conservative state.
Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programsAdvocacy for health and health education
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health
Learning Objectives:
Assess how the political climate and the conservative interpretation of state laws affect sex education in schools.
Define the WISE Method for institutionalizing sex education.
Analyze strategies for effectively applying the WISE Method in diverse school communities.
Describe how success is achieved with long-term commitment, adaptability, and relationship-building with school and community partners.
Keyword(s): Sexuality, School-Based Health
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Ms. Alcindor has been the principal of the foundation-supported WISE Project in Georgia for four years; has been guiding implemention of effective comprehensive sex education for 14 years. Ms. Alcindor has been a Fidelity Manager for the nationally-renowned Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program, parterning with Planned Parenthood, Georgia College and State and University, and GCAPP. Ms. Alcindor is a former teacher and principal with strong interest in reducing risk factors that derail adolescent school success.
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.