Advocates for Youth can offer technical assistance on a wide range of topics including district, state, and national policy, best practices in teaching sexuality education, creating more LGBTQ+ inculsive schools and organizations, increasing the capacity of health care providers to meet the sexual health needs of adolescents, youth-adult partnership models, writing curricula, and/or discrete lesson plans, etc. Please contact us so we can learn more about your needs and how we can best support your efforts.
Training Hub
The Sex Education Collaborative Training Hub lists trainings for sex educators, facilitators, and other professionals on best practices for sharing important information with clients and the public. From teaching anatomy inclusively to effectively addressing bias in the classroom to addressing racial justice and equity in sex education, the Training Hub includes trainings, technical assistance, and policy support from state, regional, and national leaders in the field of sex education.
Please note: The Training Hub includes both in-person and online professional trainings. If you see a training you are interested in and it isn’t listed as virtual, please reach out directly to any of our members to find out what's possible!
Trainings Offered by State-Based and National Organizations
Displaying results 96 - 100 of 154Virtual PD - Responding to Parents' Concerns about Sex Education
Virtual Professional Development is a simulated classroom where teachers can practice teaching student avatars using short scenarios and support from an instructional coach, so they can quickly learn and master the skills they most need to be effective. With upper elementary, middle and high school classrooms, Virtual PD has scenarios for teachers of all grade levels across a wide range of topics aligned with the Professional Learning Standards for Sex Education (PLSSE). You can watch the video here (link is external) to learn more about Virtual PD.
Using the Virtual Professional Development classroom simulator, the educator will practice Responding to a Parent's Concerns about Sex Education. In this scenario, the educator will have a meeting with a parent who has expressed concern about their child learning sex education. The scenario is adapted for upper elementary, middle or high school and includes parent concerns about puberty, teaching about condoms and sexual orientation. Educators will need to demonstrate effective strategies to address the parent's concerns.
- Indicator 1 (K-12): Describe three health (e.g. physical, social and/or emotional) and/or academic benefits of sex education for young people
- Indicator 2 (K-12): Describe state and/or district laws, policies, and standards that relate to sex education where one teaches.
Cultural Humility
As youth-serving professionals, we play a critical role in empowering young people by ensuring that they are equipped with the education, skills, support, agency, and resources needed to live healthy lives. To foster such empowerment, it is essential to create safe and inclusive environments for the diverse youth with whom we work. By engaging in the practice of cultural humility, which incorporates openness, self-awareness, and self-reflection in interactions with diverse individuals, youth-serving professionals can increase their self-awareness, examine personal biases, and enhance their communication skills, thereby strengthening their ability to provide culturally appropriate services for diverse and vulnerable youth.
Objectives of this training:
- Describe the tenets of cultural humility at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational levels.
- Apply communication strategies to reduce assumptions and stereotyping at the interpersonal level.
- Identify language and behaviors that contribute to or detract from actualizing the principles of cultural humility.
- Indicator 2 (K-12): Describe three impacts that conscious and unconscious bias could have on cross-cultural interactions when teaching sex education.
- Indicator 4 (K-12): Describe three strategies to reduce the impact of conscious and unconscious bias and enhance cross-cultural interactions in the classroom when teaching sex education.
- Indicator 2 (K-12): Demonstrate three strategies for creating culturally responsive classrooms. (S)
Virtual PD - Building Rapport With Students When Teaching Sex Education
Virtual Professional Development is a simulated classroom where teachers can practice teaching student avatars using short scenarios and support from an instructional coach, so they can quickly learn and master the skills they most need to be effective. With upper elementary, middle and high school classrooms, Virtual PD has scenarios for teachers of all grade levels across a wide range of topics aligned with the Professional Learning Standards for Sex Education (PLSSE). You can watch the video here (link is external) to learn more about Virtual PD.
Using the Virtual Professional Development classroom simulator, the educator will practice Building Rapport With Students When Teaching Sex Education with the student avatars. In this scenario, the educator will teach a lesson on relationships as they try and build a rapport with a relatively new class. After engaging students in a self-reflection activity with prepared questions, they ask students to turn & talk with a partner to share their responses. They then facilitate a share out among the whole class. In this simulation with five students, the participant will need to demonstrate the ability to build rapport with students and intervene in homophobic and other bullying comments and actions when they arise.
- Indicator 1 (K-12): Demonstrate the ability to build rapport with students. (S)
Creating a Comfortable Climate
This training helps sex education instructors ensure they are using best practices when it comes to setting the tone for discussions, answering questions, preventing challenging situations, and managing them effectively if they do occur.
- Indicator 1 (K-12): Demonstrate three techniques to create an inclusive and affirming learning environment. (S)
- Indicator 2 (K-12): Demonstrate three strategies for creating culturally responsive classrooms. (S)
- Indicator 3 (K-12): Describe three elements of a trauma-informed approach to sex education.
- Indicator 4 (K-12): Demonstrate three strategies of a trauma-informed approach to sex education (e.g. giving trigger warnings before content on sexual assault and allowing students the right to pass as appropriate, etc.). (S)
- Indicator 1 (K-12): Describe the importance of teachers’ maintaining professional boundaries when teaching sex education.
- Indicator 2 (K-12): List three factors to consider regarding personal disclosure when teaching sex education
- Indicator 4 (K-12): Explain the roles and responsibilities of a mandated reporter.
- Indicator 1 (K-12): Explain three reasons why it is important to respond to every question students ask when teaching sex education.
- Indicator 1 (K-12): Describe three health (e.g. physical, social and/or emotional) and/or academic benefits of sex education for young people
- Indicator 2 (K-12): Describe state and/or district laws, policies, and standards that relate to sex education where one teaches.
- Indicator 1 (K-12): Explain the differences between personal and universal values relating to sexuality.
- Indicator 2 (K-12): Describe how verbal and nonverbal expression of personal values, and comfort with topics related to sex education, could impact one’s teaching
- Indicator 3 (K-12): Explain the importance of educators refraining from sharing their personal values when implementing sex education.
- Indicator 4 (K-12): Demonstrate the ability to respond effectively to students’ values-based comments and questions. (S)
Additional Trainings offered by out-of-state organizations
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Barriers to Abortion Access for Michigan Minors
Unplanned pregnancies are challenging for any population, but particularly for adolescents. When dealing with issues like pregnancy and abortion, teens are often denied the tools to make informed and autonomous decisions. This training will work with participants to identify and set aside individual judgments in order to provide unbiased support to pregnant adolescents. The training will also cover mandatory parental involvement laws, judicial bypass, and how to help minors navigate the judicial bypass system.
In this training, participants will:
- Indicator 1 (K-12): Describe three health (e.g. physical, social and/or emotional) and/or academic benefits of sex education for young people
- Indicator 2 (K-12): Describe state and/or district laws, policies, and standards that relate to sex education where one teaches.
- Indicator 1 (K-12): Explain the differences between personal and universal values relating to sexuality.



