It’s November 19th today. That means the National Sex Ed Conference is a short thirteen days away. This year, I’m co-chairing the event, which means I’m neck deep in emails with varying levels of frantic tones behind them. Because I’m not quite keeping up with the pace of emails and I’m a few more emails… Read more »
I was flipping through lesson plans, looking for something on adoption to note National Adoption Month, when this activity leapt out of the table of contents and demanded that I pay attention. I mean, National Adoption Day is still a week or so away, and how on earth could I pass up something about reality… Read more »
While today’s lesson plan isn’t focused specifically on LARCs, as the rest of the week has been, the organization of the lesson definitely focuses on the differences between LARCs and other common hormonal contraceptive methods. LARCs stand in a class of their own regarding ease of use and effectiveness – something students benefit from knowing,… Read more »
On to the third lesson plan about LARCs in Positive Images! This time we’ve moved on from general education about LARCs and the misconceptions associated with them to the contraceptive decision making process. When I teach college level Human Sexuality (generally in a Psychology Department), I teach content like the details of contraception as a… Read more »
Continuing our LARC conversation from Monday, today I’m going to focus on a lesson called, quite cleverly, On A LARC. This lesson plan is also from Positive Images. I like that it builds on Introducing LARCs, dispelling myths, addressing benefits more deeply, and making the idea of a long acting contraceptive more accessible to students…. Read more »
Last weekend I taught a pregnancy options counseling training for nurses at the New York City Health Department – a program called Connecting Adolescents to Comprehensive Health (CATCH). The program generally and the specific nurses and health educators who I met just impressed the pants off of me. The program is entirely data driven –… Read more »
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I’ve already written a little about my personal relationship with domestic violence, so today (and for the rest of the week) I want to focus on domestic violence, but in a slightly different sort of way. Today, I want to talk about the Declaration of Sexual Rights from the… Read more »
Every now and then I wander over to Yik Yak, that location-based nightmare of a web app that swept the country last year, leaving a swath of social media wreckage in high schools. (And continues to on college campuses.) The app has been disabled on and near high school campuses, but not until it raised… Read more »
October is LGBTQ history month – and I’m thinking about that today, as I sit here at my computer. And so I’m also thinking about Jallen Rix’s movie Lewd & Lascivious: 1965: Drag Queens, Ministers, and the SFPD, the Stonewall riots (June 28th was the 45th anniversary), and Matthew Shepard (October 6th was the 16th… Read more »
This morning I heard a young person talking about trust – and how organizations absolutely must develop trust with their clients or they won’t be able to do anything at all. Young people won’t accept help from someone they don’t trust. This is an idea that could boom around the world. What does it mean… Read more »
Today my daughter left the US for ten days in Brazil. It’s overwhelming, as a mother, to put her on a plane for such a trip. (Important to note, she’s going with my mother, so it’s hardly like she’s without resources.) Leading up to this trip, though, we needed to access medical attention to address… Read more »
Today I’m sitting in the exhibit hall of the Healthy Teen Network conference, contemplating all of these amazing people – both my co-exhibiters and the attendees. Here are some of the people I’ve met: Connected Health Solutions Healthy Futures of Texas Michigan Adolescent Health Initiative Teen Empower And this is what I love most about… Read more »
In continuation of our observance of National HealthcareQuality Week. I’m highlighting the second lesson in Teaching Safer Sex: Sexual Health in Prime Time. Today’s lesson has me wondering why it is that we talk so much about unhealthy sexuality without talking about healthy sexuality? The rationale for this lesson is intrinsic to everything I’m going… Read more »
You know what’s kind of a cool part of writing 500 Lessons in 500 Days? Learning – and deeply thinking – about all of the sexuality related days and months. This week is National Healthcare Quality Week. This summer my older daughter was hospitalized in Germany for heart issues, so high quality health care has… Read more »
Today is National Mammography Day, as part of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I’m going to be honest: I struggle with breast cancer awareness month. It is a really important topic, and one that is worthy of time and attention. My stepmother was diagnosed with breast cancer some years ago and I sat with her in… Read more »
Today marks two very special birthdays: The first birth control clinic in the United States (98 years old) and my younger daughter (10 years old). It’s pretty amazing to think that in two short years birth control clinics will only be 100 years old – and my girl will already be 12. Time is both… Read more »
Happy National Latino AIDS Awareness Day! (NLAAD) It really is a week of Days to Celebrate Things, isn’t it? Today is National Latino AIDS Awareness Day, but tomorrow – tomorrow is my daughter’s tenth birthday, and if that isn’t something amazing to celebrate I don’t know what is! But back to today. (Stay in the… Read more »
Happy Let’s Talk Month! When I first jumped into sex education my initial thought was to work primarily with parents. I wanted to support family conversations about sexuality – support parents on their paths as primary sexuality educators. I met with a few parents privately to get a needs-assessment going and then I jumped in… Read more »
Tomorrow is National Coming Out Day. The process of coming out can run the gamut from easy-peasy to riddled with pain. When I came out it was much closer to the second kind. I was already an adult, married, with children. People have jumped to assumptions about what that meant for me – that I… Read more »
Tomorrow’s post, which I’ve already got ruminating around in my head, partially written even, is going to be about National Coming Out Day, which is always on October 11th (which is Saturday). October is also LGBT History Month! As I am pondering the post for tomorrow and this LGBT history month and flipping through Positive Images… Read more »
