Teen Sexual Health

Training Teen Health Educators

Overview | Untangling Risk And Vulnerability | Empowering Teens To Be Self-Advocates For Sexual Health

Health Promotion: Empowering Teens To Be Self-Advocates For Sexual Health

Learning Objectives: Participants will explore what "Health Promotion" is and the characteristics of a "self-advocate." They will develop strategies to empower their peers in making health a priority.

Resources:

• Empowering Teens to be Self-Advocates for Sexual Health Activity

Time: 1 hour

Materials:

• Sheets of flipchart paper and markers
• Handout: Health Promotion Basics
• Handout: Principles of the Harm Reduction Approach
• Handout: Self-Advocacy

Procedure:

• As a large group, brainstorm the following questions:
  • What are some of the key health concerns for teens in your community?
  • What makes it hard for teens to access the services and information resources that could help them take care of their health? What makes it easy?
  • What makes it hard for teens to take the necessary steps (such as condom use) to take care of their sexual health? What makes it easy?
• Explain that over the years there have been many different theories about what "health" means and how to help people be "healthy." These theories differ in how they portray the body, disease, medical staff, and the person receiving care. These ideas affect the services and resources available.
• Explain that the next activity is an opportunity to explore one of these theories and how it can help teens care for their own sexual health. The group will be divided into two, and each will receive a summary of a different health theory.
• Each group will discuss how their theory can help teens understand and maintain sexual health.
• After 10 minutes, the groups will report back to the larger group.

Group A:

• Give participants the Health Promotion Basics Handout. Have them review the concepts and ask them the following questions:
  • What do you notice about health promotion?
  • If someone were following the health promotion concepts, how might they approach teen health issues?
  • What are some of the benefits of following the health promotion concepts in working with teens? What are some of the challenges?

Group B:

• Give participants the Harm Reduction Handout. Have them review the concepts and ask them the following questions:
  • What do you notice about harm reduction?
  • If someone were following the harm reduction concepts, how might they approach teen health issues?
  • What are some of the benefits of using health promotion concepts in working with teens? What are some of the challenges?
• Small groups report back to the whole group. Encourage participants to ask questions of the other. At the end of the reports, ask if anyone has any further insights they'd like to share.
• Emphasize that one of the key goals of any workshop they will deliver is to help teens learn how to make healthy choices for themselves (to become effective self-advocates).
• A self-advocate is someone who is able to speak up on their own behalf in the areas that could affect their health. We want teens to be able to use these skills with doctors, nurses, friends, partners, etc.
• Successful self-advocates know:
  • Themselves
  • Their rights
  • Their choices. They are able to find the information they need through research, reflection, and discussion.
  • The risks of a particular choice or decision
  • How to speak up
  • How to get support

Health Promotion Basics Handout - From The Ottawa Charter

Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health. To reach a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing, individuals must be able to:

• Identify and realize their aspirations;
• Satisfy their needs;
• Change or cope with their environments.

Prerequisites for health are peace, income, shelter, a stable ecosystem, education, social justice, food, and equality.

Principles of Promoting Health

ENABLE: Health promotion focuses on achieving equity. It ensures equal opportunities and resources to enable people to achieve their fullest health potential. It secures the foundation of health in a supportive environment, with access to information and opportunities to enhance personal skills.

ADVOCATE: Health promotion aims to make the following conditions favourable through advocacy: political, economic, social, cultural, environmental, behavioural, and biological.

MEDIATE: Professional groups, social groups, and health personnel have a major responsibility to mediate between differing interests in society in the pursuit of health. Health promotion strategies should be adapted to local needs and possibilities.

Action Steps for Health Promotion

BUILD HEALTHY PUBLIC POLICY

CREATE SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENTS: The overall guiding principle for the world, nations, regions, and communities alike is the need to take care of each other, out communities and our natural environment.

STRENGTHEN COMMUNITY ACTION

DEVELOP PERSONAL SKILLS: Health promotion supports personal and social development by providing information and education for achieving health and enhancing life skills, and increasing the options available to exercise control over health and make choices conducive to health.

REORIENT HEALTH SERVICES: Reorientation of health services requires professional education and training to change the attitudes and organization of health services and refocus on the total needs of the individual as a whole person.

Principles Of The Harm Reduction Approach handout

Harm reduction is a set of practical strategies that reduce negative consequences of behaviour, incorporating a spectrum of strategies from making the activity safer (e.g., condom use) to completely removing risk (e.g., abstinence). Harm reduction strategies meet people "where they are at," addressing the risk level of the behaviour along with the behaviour itself.

Harm reduction practices can look very different. There is no one set strategy. The following principles are central to harm reduction practices.

Harm Reduction:

• Accepts, for better and for worse, that a variety of sexual behaviours are a part of our world. And, instead of condemning or ignoring these behaviours, it chooses to work to minimize the harmful effects that can result.
• Understands sexual behaviour as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon that encompasses a continuum of behaviors from very risky to total abstinence, and acknowledges that some ways of expressing one's sexuality are clearly safer than others.
• Establishes quality of individual and community life and wellbeing-not necessarily abstinence-as the criteria for successful interventions and policies.
• Calls for the non-judgmental, non-coercive provision of services and resources to people in order to assist them in reducing attendant harm.
• Ensures that the people for whom the service is designed have a real voice in the creation of programs and policies.
• Affirms that it is the people themselves who are the primary agents for reducing the harms of their behaviour, and seeks to empower people to share information and support each other in strategies that meet their needs.
• Recognizes that the realities of social issues and inequalities affect both people's vulnerability and capacity for effectively dealing with possibly harmful behaviours.

What Is A Self-Advocate?

A Self-Advocate is someone who is able to speak up on his or her own behalf in areas that could affect their health. Teens can use self-advocacy skills with doctors, nurses, friends, partners, that is, with anyone with whom they have a relationship.

Successful Self-Advocates know:

• Themselves
• Their rights
• Their choices. They are able to find the information they need through research, reflection, and discussion.
• The risks of a particular choice or decision
• How to speak up
• How to get support

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