Sexual Health Education

Research consistently indicates that positive sexual health outcomes are most likely to occur when sexual health education effectively integrates knowledge, motivation, skill-building opportunities and environmental supports for sexual health. Effective sexual health education involves a combination of educational experiences that will enable:

Acquisition of knowledge

• Information relevant to personal sexual health
• Understanding of individual and cultural differences in beliefs about sexual health
• Information about ways to achieve/maintain sexual health

Development of motivation/personal insight

• Acceptance of one's own sexuality
• Development of positive attitudes toward sexual health-promoting behaviour
• Critical consciousness raising about sexual health issues

Development of skills that support sexual health

• Ability to formulate age-appropriate sexual health goals
• Ability to carry out sexual health-promoting behaviours to reach those goals
• Ability to evaluate and modify one's sexual health plan as necessary

Creation of environment conducive to sexual health

• Developing personal awareness of environmental influences on sexual health
• Acquiring skills needed to identify and influence the social practices/policies/structures that affect sexual health