Guest Blog Post by Jeff Gould

The Professional Learning Standards for Sex Education were released earlier this year by the Sex Education Collaborative (SEC), a collaboration of 20 national, regional, and state-based organizations with extensive experience training educators to teach school-based sex education. The standards provide a comprehensive overview of core skills, attitudes, and content knowledge that will assist teachers and educators in delivering quality sex education effectively.

The Standards are divided into four domains, which are then divided into topics and indicators that relate to educators’ knowledge of content, familiarity with teaching methods, or understanding of best practices:

Domain 1: Context for Sex Education

• Sex education in schools

Domain 2: Professional Disposition

• Values
• Conscious and unconscious bias about race, ethnicity, and culture
• Disclosure

Domain 3: Best Practices for Sex Education

• Racial and reproductive justice
• Creating an inclusive and affirming learning environment
• Effective teaching strategies
• Responding to challenging questions

Domain 4: Key Content Areas

• Healthy relationships
• Consent, interpersonal and sexual violence
• LGBQ+ identities
• Transgender and gender expansive identities
• Puberty and adolescent development
• Sexual and reproductive anatomy and physiology
• Contraception, pregnancy, and reproduction
• HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases/infections

But how do we help sex educators make all of these important things happen?

As both a member of the SEC and co-creators of the Foundations: Core Skills Training for Sex Ed, Cardea is pleased to see how effectively the Foundations training addresses most, if not all of the recommendations in the Professional Learning Standards for Sex Education. Between the one-day core skills training and the additional supplemental modules, such as Trauma-Informed Approach to Sex Education, LGBTQ Inclusive Sex Ed, Cultural Competency in Sex Education Programs and Commonly Used Sex Education Strategies, Foundations is a comprehensive start to developing skilled sex ed trainers.

With cadres of Foundations trainers in 19 states, we hope that we can meet the needs of teachers and educators wanting to be more solidly grounded in the Professional Learning Standards for Sex Education.

Ready to sign up?

Register now for the Pre-conference Institute, Foundations Training, at the Healthy Teen Network Conference in New Orleans this October.

Jeffrey M. Gould, MDiv, Director of Partnership and Innovation, has been working in the field of community health and education for the past twenty-five years, with a focus on sexual health education. Mr. Gould has developed curricula, implemented sexual health education in the classroom, designed trainings, facilitated teacher trainings and, over the last fifteen years, has been supporting school districts with the adoption and implementation of adolescent health policies and programs. Mr. Gould currently coordinates Cardea’s school-based health services on both a state and national level, which includes the Working to Institutionalize Sexuality Education (WISE) Initiative, Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) Networks and FoundationsTraining.org. Mr. Gould also works to expand Cardea’s capacity to offer affordable trainings to support a range of nationally recognized curricula.