Local Educators Address the “Birds & Bees”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 3, 2009
Contact
Nikki Hillier, Program Coordinator
(217) 531-2916
Lori A. Holmes, Public Relations
(217) 531-2927
Local Educators Address the “Birds & Bees”
Champaign-Urbana Public Health District to Provide FREE Training Workshop for Local Educators
Champaign, IL – On Friday, March 6, 2009 the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District (CUPHD) will be providing local educators with a FREE training workshop on how to effectively address sexual education in their classrooms. The workshop will be held from 9:00am – 3:00pm in the large conference room in CUPHD at 201 West Kenyon Road, Champaign. Interested educators are encouraged to call Jennifer Jackson 217-531-2912 to register for the workshop. The workshop materials are adaptable to any age group, and teachers from all grade levels are encouraged to attend. Lunch will be provided.
The workshop will introduce educators to the curriculums “Our Whole Lives” (OWL) and the supplement “Family Life and Sexual Health (FLASH). Both abstinence-based programs stress the importance of youth and young adults being well informed so that they can make better and healthier decisions about sexuality. Both curriculums have been identified by the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH) as meeting the criteria for comprehensive sexuality education. The curriculums will provide educators with accurate, age-appropriate information for five different age groups: grades K-1, grades 4-6, grades 7-9, grades 10-12, and adults. The curriculums are user friendly and flexible to meet the educational needs of most classrooms, and include easy to copy ageappropriate worksheets and activities.
Through the workshop educators will discover how to effectively teach their students about:
- Medically Accurate Human Development
- Relationships
- Personal Skills
- Sexual Behavior
- Sexual Health
- The Role of Society and Culture
- Self Worth
- Responsibility
- Justice and Inclusivity
- MUCH MORE!
“Sexual health is much more complex than accurately portraying the physical aspects,” said Nikki Hillier, Program Coordinator for CUPHD, “The goal of this sexual education workshop is to provide the resources necessary for local educators to give students the most up-to-date medically accurate information about sexual health available. Discussing sexual health can be uncomfortable for both the students and educator, and often times fraught with misinformation. CUPHD hopes that this workshop will provide additional avenues for local educators to approach and successfully teach comprehensive sexual education in a way that students will respond to in a positive and confident manner.”
In addition to the workshop curriculums, all participating educators will gain access to the CUPHD Resource Lending Library. Participants may request materials on a variety of sexual education topics, and CUPHD will send them directly to the schools free of charge. CUPHD also offers technical assistance in the form of professionally trained Health Educators to support efforts to educate the youth of the Champaign-Urbana community.
For more information about sexual education workshops at CUPHD, or any other CUPHD programs and services, please call 217-352-7961 or visit CUPHD on the web at www.cuphd.org or www.stock2forflu.com.
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