Healthy Teen Network customizes techincal assistance and support to meet your unique needs.
Areas of expertise span a wide range of topics across adolescent sexual and reproductive health, evidence-based approaches, curricula, working with diverse youth, training adult professionals, innovation and research, human-centered design, advocacy and public policy, strategic planning, sustainability, and more.
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) has become a framework that many schools are using to bolster students' academic achievements as well as their social and emotional skills. Teaching SEL in the context of comprehensive sexuality education can help young people develop the understanding and skills needed to navigate healthy relationships and healthy sexuality throughout their lives.
LGBTQIA+ students have the right to a safe and healthy learning experience in the state of Michigan. Students and educators, however, are often unaware of these rights. In this training, participants will identify and state the implications of key legal and policy issues affecting LGBTQIA+ students and safe school environments in Michigan.
In this training, participants will:
Even within justice-oriented spaces, fatphobia, a system of oppression, is frequently normalized and ignored. Due to diet culture and body surveillance under the guise of public health, we are not often given the space to discuss liberation from fatphobia.
Many LGBTQIA+ youth thrive in school, relationships, and their communities, but it is important to recognize that LGBTQIA+ youth are also at high risk for experiencing violence and bullying and have disproportionately high rates of unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, depression, and substance abuse.
This training will walk participants through current Michigan law and policy as it relates to sex education in K-12 schools. We will review content requirements and spend time on Sex Education Advisory Boards (SEABs), the groups that set goals and objectives and review and recommend curriculum for their local school districts.
Many supportive educators and school staff are asked to be Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) advisors, but don’t know where to start. GSAs (also known as gender and sexuality alliances, queer straight alliances, and other names) are student-driven clubs for LGBTQ+ students and allies. They play a huge role in making schools more safe and supportive.
Since the start of the "Me Too" movement, more teachers are looking for ways to incorporate consent into sex education. This training will help participants recognize language changes and immediate shifts they can make in existing content and identify various tools, resources, materials, and activities that could be used in classroom related to consent. The training will also review best practices and key messages for teaching consent; particularly being intentional about students at different developmental levels.
We never know what traumas someone has experienced or what could trigger a trauma response for someone. As more and more research has come to show that many young people are experiencing high levels of trauma, it's essential that we work to create safer spaces for young people in schools. This includes ensuring that sex education will not become a re-traumatizing experience for survivors.This training will cover the basics of trauma, small “t” vs. big “T” trauma, and how Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) can play a part in sex education.
Although expectant and parenting youth (EPY) express a need for sex education (contraception, healthy relationships, etc.), many programs are not adequately inclusive of EPY.