Connections Matter is a training designed to engage community members in building caring connections to:
- Improve resiliency,
- Prevent childhood trauma, and
- Understand how our interactions with others can support those who have experienced trauma.
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!
Connections Matter is a training designed to engage community members in building caring connections to:
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. We will cover six key principles of trauma-informed sex education and work on strategies to implement in the classroom. This training will have interactive small and large group discussions and provide opportunities for participants to work through scenarios to practice principles they learned in the session.
In this training, participants will:
All people deserve access to medically accurate and developmentally appropriate information related to their sexuality and sexual health. Yet often, individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are not included in sex education. Training participants will have an opportunity to identify and examine values, practice intentional language, work on concrete skills for adapting lesson plans, share challenges and successes, and learn best practices for implementing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) through lecture, peer-to-peer conversation, modeling, and skill-building activities. This full-day, interactive training was informed by a team of multi-disciplinary experts and a focus-group of youth self-advocates. We hope you can join us for this brand-new training intended for educators, service providers, and anyone who is working directly with individuals with IDD. Registration link here.
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. Comprehensive and inclusive sex education can help improve these outcomes for all youth. This training will provide an overview of the unique challenges and needs of LGBTQIA+ youth and allow participants to discuss and practice strategies to promote more inclusive classrooms and curriculum.
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. This workshop allows the audience to reflect on how fatphobia is normalized and shows up in their lives, discuss how fatphobia is explicitly tied to every other system of oppression, and tie fat liberation to queer and trans liberation as we advocate for ourselves and our communities in the fight against fatphobia.
In this training, participants will:
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: