The Sessions

Healthy Fifteens are short, 15-minute presentations used to share information “TED talk” style. Two Healthy Fifteen presentations will be paired together based on a shared topic/theme that is essential to adolescent sexual and reproductive health. These paired presentations will create a 30-minute session.

In Their Own Voices and Through Their Own Lenses: Capturing Youth Perspectives on Health Services in Their Rural Community

Deneen Long-White, Salisbury University

In this session, participants will learn how we obtained youth opinions about adolescent health services in their rural community. The two-month project blends Photovoice and interviews to develop a video which will be presented to parents and other trusted adults who serve on the Wicomico County Systems Team. The information from the videos will be used to address gaps and improve/enhance the current services provided for youth in the community.

 

This Meeting is a Protest

Lucy Blumberg, Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies

This session will share a video from the Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies’ youth leadership council, featuring young people discussing what they need from adults, especially in the midst of a global pandemic. A fully youth-led conversation, this session will give conference attendees the chance to hear directly from young people about their experience of the pandemic and ideas of improving mental health for young people. Afterwards, attendees will get the chance to discuss reactions and reflections and hear from one of the participants directly.

 

A Secret Shopper Project to Evaluate Sexual and Reproductive Health Services for Young People in South Los Angeles

Marina Quintanilla, Essential Access Health

To address high rates of STIs among youth and young adults ages 16-24, Essential Access evaluated the “youth friendliness” of sexual and reproductive health clinical services for young people in South Los Angeles. We recruited youth evaluators ages 16-24 to assess their experiences at 14 clinic sites. In this session, Essential Access Health will share best practice recommendations on conducting a Secret Shopper project and including youth in research, and we will share project findings. Participants will learn recommendations for engaging youth in the research process and centering their voices and needs as well as concrete ways to increase the youth friendliness of sexual and reproductive health services that are informed by youth to be current and community-specific to ultimately improve adolescent health.

How Title X Family Planning Clinics Rose to the Challenge

Mousumi Banikya-Leaseburg, Office of Population Affairs

In this session, I will describe how Title X family planning clinics were impacted by COVID-19 and the varied adaptations they made in order to continue providing access to high-quality, equitable, client-centered SRH services through public health centers and sub-recipient clinics. I will describe the unprecedented challenges to the Title X program resulting from the pandemic, but also widespread adaptability and resiliency on the part of grantees and their affiliated clinics as they worked to address challenges, effectively leveraging them as opportunities to creatively rethink how best to meet client needs. I will share specific strategies that clinics adopted to be responsive to the unique needs of adolescent clients.

Digital Tools to Support the Mental Health and Well-Being of LGBTQ+ Youth

Euan Hwang, CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers

There is a great need for additional mental health prevention tools that are easily accessible and available for LGBTQ+ youth, especially in the digital space where youth who are not in a supportive environment can more safely access support. This talk will present two free resources, Q Chat Space, which provides anonymous, facilitated, live-chat discussions, and imi, a brand new, science-backed mental health tool offering interactive modules for LGBTQ+ youth to learn coping skills, hear stories from members of their community, and explore resources to affirm their identity and boost mental health.

Pushing P: Centering Pleasure in Sexuality Education

Tanya Bass, NCSEXCON

The topic of pleasure, acknowledgment of pleasure, or the celebration of pleasure is often excluded in sexuality education overall across the lifespan. The World Association for Sexual Health (WAS), with their Pleasure Declaration, defines sexual pleasure as the “physical and/or psychological satisfaction and enjoyment derived from shared or solitary erotic experiences, including thoughts, fantasies, dreams, emotions, and feelings.” Although not all pleasure is sexual, teaching, learning, or discussing pleasure has left some professionals with limited skills or strategies to include in their lessons or activities. This session will discuss the benefits of teaching pleasure and strategies to effectively incorporate pleasure into sexuality education.

Addressing Harmful Comments in Real Time: How to Create Safer Learning Spaces

Charley Newel, Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo (CAPSLO)

This session will explore how to mindfully and tactfully address harmful comments, in real time. Drawing from best practices, this session will engage participants in how to more confidently transform harmful remarks into meaningful learning experiences for all students. This session will provide an opportunity for participants to recognize the importance of maintaining personal boundaries and self-care, while simultaneously interrupting harm and setting a strong example for your students.

Your Trauma is Showing: Serving Youth in Times of Crisis

Gabriella Mendoza, Master of Nonprofit Leadership and Management

These past two years, we’ve collectively experienced a loss of control in our day to day. With less control, there is heightened vulnerability resulting in a broadcast of our most authentic selves: our strengths, our fears, and our harmful behaviors. In this time of crisis, how has the need to serve youth shifted? How do we continue to lead our youth when we ourselves are feeling out of control? In this presentation, we’ll explore ways we can continue to lead our youth in a world where our vulnerability has collectively been brought to the surface.

Promoting Healthy Social Connections in Adolescence: A Critical Need Now and Beyond the Pandemic

Crystal Smith, Wyman Center, Inc.

Research continues to affirm the importance of social connections during adolescence. The need for connection has only been amplified by the events of the past 18 months and the social isolation that has resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. In this presentation, participants will learn specific strategies, applicable across program interventions and implementation settings, for building connectedness in their work with adolescents.

Restoring Empathy

Karina Herrera, Touchstone Health Services

In this session, participants will explore barriers that prevent empathy from blossoming, learn how empathy is manifested in the brain, and how we can help our brain practice empathy. An open mind and a kind heart will leave participants motivated to empathize with the world.

Let’s Talk About Condoms: Teachers’ Experiences Implementing Condom Demonstrations in Baltimore City Public Schools

Annie Smith, Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University

Condoms are a valuable tool for STI prevention, and condom demonstrations are a key component of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE). This presentation will summarize findings from focus group discussions with health teachers in Baltimore City Public Schools, in which teachers shared their experiences conducting condom demonstrations. Topics covered will include teachers’ comfort levels, challenges they’ve encountered in conducting demonstrations, and areas for support and capacity building.

Sound On (Breaking the Silence): Lifting Youth and Stakeholder Voices in Program Development

Brittany Wearing, Fact Forward

Youth and stakeholders are often not included in the process of program development. In this presentation, we will share ways in which we engaged youth and stakeholders in program development through listening sessions, youth events, surveys, and more. Participants will walk away with strategies they can use within their own programs.

How-To Tips to Make Your Sex Ed More Accessible to Youth with Disabilities, along with Their Parents, Caregivers, and Educators

Kayla McKean, SexEdVA

The Disability-inclusive Sexual Health Network (DSHN) is a collaborative network of partner organizations around the state of Virginia who are working to make sexual health education more accessible for youth with disabilities. Organizations include community organizations, health care providers, parent advocacy groups, and educators. Partners are developing and testing innovative educational interventions for youth, parents/caregivers, and educators. In this session, we will describe the development and design of several interventions and how we engaged stakeholders throughout the process. We will review testing and refining methods and share promising findings for effective interventions. Additionally, we will share strategies and approaches that sex educators can incorporate into their teaching to better meet the needs of their students with disabilities.

Fighting Stigmas: How We Can Do Better for Expectant and Parenting Youth with Lived Experience in Foster Care

Monica Faulkner, The University of Texas at Austin

Expectant and parenting youth in foster care face multiple stigmas that hinder their ability to realize their full potential as adolescents, young adults, and parents. This presentation will touch on the three actions caregivers and professionals can take to support young parents. As caregivers and professionals, we must 1) understand the context of young parents in foster care through the lenses of child development, trauma, grief, and loss; 2) understand ourselves; and 3) build protective factors in adolescence to help meet the core developmental needs of young parents. While we can never understand the complexity and history of any one person, we can often recognize patterns in behaviors that will help guide us to the right type of response. We can use basic listening and affirmative responses to help remove shame and stigma that youth may be carrying with them.

Bringing Sex Education into the 21st Century through Storytelling and Technology

Marisa Cervantes, MyHealthEd, Inc.
Cristina Leos, MyHealthEd, Inc.

We designed a 10-week comprehensive sex education curriculum to be delivered entirely via an app. The curriculum features authentic stories written by youth about their experiences with sexual health topics, in addition to other resources and activities to facilitate learning. In this presentation, we describe the programmatic and technological considerations to ensure the digital intervention is youth-centered, trauma-informed, medically accurate, inclusive, and culturally responsive. We identify challenges and key decisions needed to balance breadth and depth of the content with the constraints of mobile technology and digital engagement. Finally, we share strategies for incorporating trauma-informed practices and the implications for intervention dose and fidelity. Together, this work provides a blueprint for developing accessible, comprehensive sexual and reproductive health interventions for youth.

 

The Importance of Inclusivity and Intersectionality in Gender Transformative Program Design: How to Do It and Why

Cody Ragonese, Equimundo
Mackenzie Piper, Healthy Teen Network

In this session, the facilitators will take a deep dive into gender transformative programming. Presenters from Promundo-US, Latin American Youth Center, and Healthy Teen Network will reflect on their process of taking two single-gender curricula, and how they adapted them to be inclusive of all-gender learning environments. Using feedback from youth digital focus groups, facilitator interviews, and best practices, presenters will share how they prioritized topics and updated activities to better reflect the lived experiences of gender diverse youth. Presenters will present questions they grappled with, including how do you balance inclusivity, while also acknowledging the gender binary and the structures that limit gender expression? With an ever-evolving vocabulary and awareness of the diversity of gender identities, we recognize the importance of programs that are inclusive and intersectional. Facilitators will model potential activities, and participants will discuss how this lens can be applied to their work.

 

Walking the Talk: How Youth-Centered is Your Work?

Tammy Delocéano, Amplify Youth Health Collective
Gabriela Peña Pérez, Amplify Youth Health Collective’s Youth Leadership Council

During the COVID-19 pandemic, young people needed trusted adults and youth-centered spaces to support them more than ever. Did your organization have the structures in place to answer that call? For many of us, the pandemic challenged our capacity to implement youth-centered work authentically. Join us to hear about Amplify’s Youth Leadership Council and their innovative body positivity workshop, implemented in both English and Spanish, during the height of COVID-19. Through this session, participants will learn valuable insights and best practices for replicating a youth-centered program model that shares power with young people, combats internalized adultism, adapts to unforeseen challenges, and creates spaces where youth can authentically impact their community.

 

Muted Mics and Quiet Participants: Strategies for Creating Engaging Training and Program Experiences in Virtual and In-Person Environments

Nathaniel Hillard, Wyman Center, Inc.
Crystal Smith, Wyman Center, Inc.

Working with youth in a virtual environment can be challenging without the planning necessary to draw the same attention and engagement that in-person environments allow. Navigating empty screens or quiet groups can appear intimidating for both training and program implementation, but with intentional effort and strategies that empower staff and young people, both in-person and virtual spaces can offer a meaningful experience. In this session, we will discuss strategies to create spaces to engage and re-engage both youth and adult participants in all types of learning environments.

 

Growing into the Next Phase of the Pandemic: Sharing Perspectives and Collective Discoveries

Jamie Grilz, University of Minnesota, Healthy Youth Development-Prevention Research Center
Jill Farris, University of Minnesota, Healthy Youth Development-Prevention Research Center

Is this your first time gathering in person at a conference in over two years? Us too! This session is designed to hold space for re-engaging, connecting on hardships, sharing wins, and ultimately growing together into the next phase of the pandemic. Utilizing a World Cafe format that encourages everyone’s participation, facilitators will host small group discussion questions, such as: How has your organization survived and/or thrived over the past 2 years? What did your organization implement virtually that you plan to keep virtual? What tips do you have to implement an effective virtual sex education program? What is needed to re-engage the communities you work alongside to implement effective in-person programming? How do we re-engage our internal teams as we enter into more in-person workforces? After small group discussions, insights will be shared out to the large group to connect diverse perspectives and share our collective discoveries.

 

Bridging the Gap Between Child Welfare and Sex Education: Building Connections to Support the Sexual Health of Youth in Care

Barbara Ball, Texas Institute for Child and Family Wellbeing, University of Texas at Austin
Tia Brooks, North Texas Alliance to Reduce Unintended Pregnancies in Teens
Sharon Hoefer, Texas Institute for Child and Family Wellbeing, University of Texas at Austin

The Texas Foster Youth Health Initiative (TFYHI) has built a statewide innovation network that brings together youth, caregivers, and child welfare professionals to support the sexual health of youth in care. In this session, youth will share their perspectives on what they need, and we will provide insight into the intervention design process.  Finally, we will engage participants in sample activities from new interventions designed for youth, caregivers, and child welfare professionals.

 

Data Dives: A Practical Way to Apply Systems Thinking in Teen Sexual Health Programs

Annie Smith, Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University
Deneen Long-White, Salisbury University 

Systems thinking has become increasingly popular in the design and implementation of adolescent sexual health programs. Although tools for learning and applying systems thinking exist, many are not aligned with the limited time and resources of public health agencies and non-profits, who are often over-extended, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, systems thinking resources that are focused on youth as decision-makers are scarce. The objective of this workshop is to describe a systems thinking approach for adolescent sexual health strategy development that leverages existing, often publicly available data. This “data dive” approach was implemented with health departments, partner organizations, and youth in rural counties with high teen birth rates as part of the True You Maryland project. This workshop will offer an opportunity for program managers, practitioners, and youth-serving professionals to learn about and adapt a data-driven approach to engaging young people and communities in sexual health programs and strategies.

 

 

AMAZE Education: Best Practices for Engaging Youth in Digital Media Spaces

Rachael Gibson, AMAZE Education at Advocates for Youth

The goal of this session is to share best practices for engaging youth in digital media spaces. Co-facilitated by an AMAZE sex educator and youth ambassadors, the session will share an overview the AMAZE-ing FREE resources available to youth and their families, teachers, schools, and communities. We will begin by highlighting youth voices in sexuality education spaces. Participants will hear directly from young people about how AMAZE has impacted their lives and empowered them to make healthy choices around their sexual health. Next, we will share lessons learned about best practices for engaging youth in the digital media space, including YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Participants will have time to directly engage with the content and each other and reflect on how it may support their own practice and how they might implement AMAZE and other digital media in their programming.

 

From Approval to Action: Mobilizing Parental Support for Sex Ed

Jill Farris, University of Minnesota Healthy Youth Development – Prevention Research Center
Jamie Grilz, University of Minnesota Healthy Youth Development – Prevention Research Center

Advocates for comprehensive sex education (CSE) often cite perceived lack of support from parents or perceived controversy as a barrier to implementing CSE in schools. During this workshop, participants will review the latest research showing continued parental support for CSE, including for topics perceived as controversial. Participants will work in small groups to create messages for their local communities and practice incorporating this messaging into presentations and/or conversations with parents and other integral collaborators. Participants will identify concrete steps to advance the use of national sexuality education standards in their local schools and communities.

 

Our Youth Are the Experts: How to Create a Meaningful Youth Program in an Unstable World

Samantha Sidline, San Ysidro Health

This session will share how San Ysidro Health’s (SYH) Peer Health Advocate (PHA) program was redesigned during COVID-19 to be a robust program that is adaptable as well as builds resiliency among youth. Attendees will learn how the PHA program found success with youth-centered, with strong retention rates, increasing social media engagement among youth, and hosting two successful youth-led community events. Attendees will identify team and program values, learn how to lead trauma-informed conversations with youth groups to understand their needs and priorities, and implement those learnings into new program objectives. Attendees will understand how to apply pedagogical skills to their youth work, such as appealing to various learning styles and using motivational interviewing to accommodate the major transitions youth are experiencing while giving them tools to thrive.

 

From Exclusion to Inclusion: Breaking Barriers to School-Based Sexual Health Education for Youth with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Jessia LaHote, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
Taahira Thompasionas, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have greater unmet sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs compared to non-disabled people; they score lower on SRH knowledge measures, are at a higher risk for contracting STIs, and are up to eight times more likely to experience sexual abuse. Individuals with IDD are sexual beings just like their peers but are less likely to receive sex education. Providing sex education to teens with IDD can reduce SRH disparities and support them in exercising their sexual and reproductive autonomy. Previous research has yet to effectively synthesize recommendations for this population in school settings. Informed by our recent systematic review, this session will provide an overview of best practices and knowledge gaps in school-based sex education for youth with IDD. Attendees will strategize how to apply these findings by incorporating best practices into their programs or identifying ways to advance research in this area.

 

From MVP to RCT: Using Human-Centered Design to Develop a Novel Teen Pregnancy Prevention Intervention

Sarah Axelson, Power to Decide
Cristina Leos, My HealthEd, Inc.
Claudia Nuñez-Eddy, Power to Decide

Are you curious about innovation in teen pregnancy prevention (TPP)? Have you heard of “human-centered design” (HCD) and want to know more? In this interactive workshop, participants will learn about HCD, a solutions-based approach that centers radical empathy for the needs and desires of end users. The facilitators will share the journey of Real Talk, an app-based TPP intervention, to illustrate how HCD can increase equitable access to sex education. Real Talk crowdsources authentic stories on sexual health topics directly from teens and connects users to trusted resources within the app. Real Talk is implemented completely virtually, ensuring all youth have a safe place to access sexual health information. In this session, participants will learn about the strategies used to move Real Talk from a minimally viable product (MVP) to a promising intervention in a randomized control trial (RCT). You will leave prepared to implement HCD strategies in your own work!

 

How to Have “The Talk”: Cultivating Knowledge and Community Through Podcasts

Jessica Merino, National Center for Youth Law
Kendra Lizardo, National Center for Youth Law

Supporting youth in their healthy sexual development means ensuring the adults in their lives are empowered with what they need to provide effective support, but this relationship can be difficult and awkward for many adults. Caregivers need resources that help them support youth through their sexual health journeys—and allow them to feel good about themselves while doing so. Traditional training doesn’t always go far enough or fit our complicated, busy lives. In this session, you’ll hear about a new approach. The Reproductive Health Equity Project (RHEP) in California brought foster youth and caregivers together to develop a sexual and reproductive health podcast for foster parents. Our panel will describe the podcast and demonstrate how podcasts can create a space for caregivers and young people to share experiences, create community, and learn about important topics within sexual and reproductive health, all while having fun.

 

Sex Ed Shorts

Bilel Smith, City of Rochester

Sex Ed Shorts is a mini film series created by City of Rochester CAPP Educators and youth leaders to meet the needs of our community beyond curriculum in the classroom. These short films focus on frequently asked questions from teens and more. In this workshop, you will learn how we conceptualized, created and produced these films as well as how this initiative provided a link to the work we did in the classroom to the community at large. By collaborating with a local community television station and our youth leaders, we were able to take our ideas and bring them to life. This workshop will outline how we developed the Sex Ed Shorts project by researching content, filming videos, outreach, and more. Join us to learn how such a project can benefit your program efforts and enhance your program in a creative, innovative way.

Three Little Pigs: Storytelling and Innovation in Sexual Health 

Milagros Garrido, Healthy Teen Network
Nicholas Sufrinko, Healthy Teen Network
Patricia Natalie, Healthy Teen Network

Join us around the campfire as we retell the classic fable and explore the enduring power of stories in sexual health care and education. With a bit of myth and folklore, some narrative strategy, and a sprinkle human-centered design, you’ll learn how to find your voice, develop unforgettable ideas, and breathe life into characters and worlds. For audiences (and interventions!) large and small, you’ll see how to lean on old traditions to break through contemporary noise and shift perspective. With this, we’ll not only dare to dream of a new era, but awaken it—with the kind of lasting, real change that promises happily ever after. 

Building the Foundation: A Capacity-Building Approach to Working with Families

Lauren Barineau, Talk More

In the time that we’ve been home the last few years, families are realizing just how often kids have questions about sex. (Newsflash: it’s a lot!). Schools encourage students to talk with their families about sex, but those families are not always prepared to talk about this subject. This workshop frames family conversations as foundational to enhancing young people’s sexual well-being, rather than a small piece of the solution. Participants will explore specific strategies to build the capacity of families to have positive and proactive conversations with young people about all aspects of sexuality. Participants will have time to brainstorm possible solutions for their organization and will leave with resources for implementation.

 

Training and Implementing Sexual Health Promotion Programs Virtually: Lessons Learned from El Camino

Bianca Faccio, Child Trends
Valerie Martinez, Child Trends
Christopher Gates, Identity, Inc.

Given the uncertainty of the post-pandemic world, facilitators and administrators of sexual health promotion curricula need the flexibility for virtual implementation to ensure that youth receive the education they need to promote their sexual health. Child Trends and its implementation partners at Identity, Inc. gained experience with virtually adapting, training facilitators, and implementing the El Camino curriculum in high schools in Montgomery County, Maryland in 2021. El Camino is a sexual health promotion curriculum that is available in both English and Spanish and targeted toward Latino youth. The program is based in Positive Youth Development and encourages youth to set goals, make informed sexual and reproductive health choices, and have healthy relationships. In this session, we will discuss lessons learned from adapting this curriculum and share actionable recommendations to aid program facilitators and implementation staff in providing engaging and effective sexual health promotion curricula.

 

The Minimally Resourced Maximizer: How to Slay Sex Ed Within Limited Means

Valerie Cumming, EyesOpenIowa

Small staff? Shoestring budget? Calendar booked to the max? These limitations can be disheartening to even the most resilient sex educator, especially those who self-identify as perfectionists. Learn to use your perfectionist mindset as a secret weapon to overcome obstacles within your sexual health education career. You’ll leave feeling more confident about your ability to do a lot with only a little. You won’t want to miss this interactive session with humor and surprises sprinkled throughout.

 

Transforming the Adolescent Health Visit for Youth in Foster Care: A Patient Navigation Program

Franchesca Ocasio, Planned Parenthood Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley

How do we support youth in foster care who are accessing sexual and reproductive health services? During this session, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the unique barriers and facilitators to accessing care for these youth. We will describe one strategy, a novel Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) Navigator Program piloted at Planned Parenthood Pasadena-San Gabriel Valley. We’ll share details about its development, roll-out, and success, as well as the challenges we’ve identified to sustaining this approach. Attendees will take away lessons learned through our real-world experience and concrete examples of where navigation has connected youth to care. While our program focuses on youth in foster care, all youth can benefit from navigation, especially as access to abortion and transgender care services are targeted across the country. 

 

Hexacago Health Academy 2.0: Teaching STEM and Sexual Health through a Social Justice Lens

Ailea Stites, Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry and Innovation in Sexual and Reproductive Health (Ci3) at the University of Chicago

Hexacago Health Academy (HHA) 2.0 is a unique STEM/health education curriculum designed as part of an NIH-funded study on game design, science education, and public health at the Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry and Innovation in Sexual and Reproductive Health (Ci3) at the University of Chicago. Based on principles of positive youth development, student-driven learning, and social-cognitive career theory, the HHA curriculum uses current public health research to teach STEM-related/Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) skills through a social justice lens. In Summer 2021, we evaluated two virtual HHA curriculum courses, centered around HIV and reproductive justice, with 59 rising 11th and 12th graders from across Chicago. In this session, we will 1) explore HHA’s youth-driven development process, 2) engage with two of the interactive curricular modules related to sexual health, and 3) discuss findings from the program evaluation, including implications of virtual implementation and future directions for STEM/health education.

 

What Are the Important Elements of Meaningful Youth Engagement and How Can They Guide Our Sexual and Reproductive Health Work?

Pam Drake, ETR
Heather Marlow, International Center for Research on Women

The Youth Engagement Network (YEN) is an OPA-funded network of youth and youth-serving adults who work together to add to the knowledge base on how to meaningfully engage youth in programs that seek to improve the sexual and reproductive health outcomes of young people. We are particularly focused on giving voice to LGBTQ youth and young men of color as well as youth in rural communities. One product of the YEN is a conceptual model of meaningful youth engagement in programs that teach and advocate for sexual health and wellbeing. To create this model, we used group concept mapping (GCM)—a process of brainstorming, sorting and ranking ideas—from a wide variety of stakeholders, including youth. This session will use interactive processes to introduce the YEN, walk participants through the GCM process, present the current conceptual model, and provide, in small groups, opportunities to interact with and discuss the model.

“Can I Go Home Yet?”: Catering Learning Spaces to the Needs of Introverts

Emily Gillon, EyesOpenIowa

We’ve been adapting learning spaces to be inclusive of learners and learning styles for decades. We’ve creatively molded how we teach to the constraints of schedules and funding. We’ve even made quick pivots to virtual learning. But introverted learners have continued to be left behind in our innovation. In this workshop, participants will learn about how current teaching modalities prioritize extroverted learners that can jeopardize the learning abilities of introverts. Participants will leave with action steps and tangible skills for how to adapt their lessons and trainings to be more accessible to introverted learners.

 

Step Away from Your Screen and Walk Away with Tips and Tricks That Re-Invigorate Your Trainings

Sarah Axelson, Power to Decide

Throughout the last few years, “Zoom trainings” have been the norm. As trainers in the sexual health field, many of us haven’t used our in-person facilitation skills since 2019 or earlier. As we begin to gather in person again, we can build on the strategies that we know and are comfortable with by learning new strategies and tools. Join us for this interactive session, where you’ll learn tips and tricks to freshen your training skills. While practicing these new skills, you’ll consider adaptations for socially distanced, online, and hybrid settings. Trainers will walk away with dozens of new strategies to make their upcoming trainings even more interactive, engaging, and most of all, fun!

 

Cultivating Community and Resilience through Online Sex Ed

Perryn Reis, Health Connected
Kehaunani Gunderson, Health Connected
Zoe King, Planned Parenthood Pasadena San Gabriel Valley

In March of 2020, as everyone rapidly migrated online for almost everything, three California organizations – the National Center for Youth Law, Planned Parenthood of Pasadena San Gabriel Valley, and Health Connected – were in the early stages of discussing what online sexual health education could look like for youth in foster care. Despite the fact that this was a largely novel approach to sexual health education, COVID-19 presented a key opportunity for the partners to build expertise in online sexual health education and tailor the experience to the specific needs of youth in care. In this session, presenters from the Reproductive Health Equity Project (RHEP), including youth advisors, will describe their journey to implementing live, online, inclusive sexual health education that incorporates Dr. Shawn Ginwright’s model for healing-centered engagement tailored specifically for youth who have experienced trauma.

 

Sharing Power and Amplifying Young Parent Voices

Regina Salliey Cooper, R. Salliey Philanthropic Advisors

Many people hold power over expectant and parenting youth (EPY)—teachers, courts, child welfare agencies, childcare providers, probation officers—limiting opportunities for them to share their experiences, opinions, and make their voices heard. Exploring lessons learned on youth and young adult partnerships from the Pregnancy Prevention and Parenting Support Learning and Action Network, participants will learn from the lived experiences of young parents, hear their recommendations for successful youth-adult partnerships, and engage in an interactive process lifting up highlights and nuanced pitfalls that others can plan for in their engagement/power sharing strategies. Participants will also obtain key strategies for sharing power and amplifying the voices of expectant and parenting youth. At the end of the session, participants will learn ways to clarify expectations and jointly design working agreements in their partnership(s) and how to support youth to safely share their stories to support advocacy efforts.

 

Shifting Your Mental Models to Unlock Change—Practical Application of Systems Thinking in Teen Pregnancy Prevention

Jaclyn Ruiz, Office of Population Affairs
Amanda Leeson, Office of Population Affairs

Systems thinking offers an empathetic and data-driven approach to better understand and identify the drivers of teen pregnancy and unlock change and improve outcomes for teens. Between 2020 and 2021, OPA funded 62 grantees to apply a systems thinking approach to have a significant impact on improving the optimal health of adolescents and reducing teen pregnancy and STIs in communities with the greatest needs and disparities. In this session, we’ll teach participants how to apply a systems thinking approach in their communities. We’ll highlight real-world applications of systems thinking in teen pregnancy prevention programs across the country and provide participants with an opportunity to use tools and activities that foster a systems thinking approach in their own community.

 

Brotherspeak: Sexual and Reproductive Health from a Man’s Perspective

Rosalyn Thomas, Office of Population of Affairs

Programs that aim to address reproductive health for young men should consider the degree to which preventing pregnancy is a priority for young men. In this session, we will share successful strategies to engage young men in discussions about sexual and reproductive health. Participants will build their skills to use these strategies through role play, small group discussion, and interactive demonstrations.