SHINE: positive Sexual Health for youth IN out-of-home Environments

Project Overview

With funding from the St. David’s Foundation, the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing (TXICFW) created a focused task group within the Central Texas Community to promote sexual health education of youth in out-of-home care.

Youth who have experienced adversity have higher rates of adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections compared to youth in general.  Those in out-of-home care may miss sexual health education in schools and often have not had reliable caregivers to provide them with accurate sexual health information. Compounding the issue, many of these youth have experienced trauma, which is not addressed in sexual health curriculum.

Most adults feel discomfort talking to youth about sex, particularly if we know that the child has experienced sexual trauma. Every child needs to have ongoing conversations about sexual health, healthy relationships and their future plans.  The idea that there is one “sex talk” or a couple classes in school is inadequate for every child. For youth in out-of-home care, involved adults must make particular efforts to ensure that youth have safe relationships in which they can talk about sexual health without feeling shame. Every adult who interacts with youth in out-of-home care should be trained in having trauma-informed discussions about sex. Training should focus on building the confidence and skills of adults and provide ongoing support for adults and technical assistance for agencies.

The SHINE (positive Sexual Health for youth IN out-of-home Environments) task group:

1. Completed a needs assessment to understand what information is needed by professionals working with youth in out of home care to support positive sexual health outcomes;
2. Brought together professionals working with youth in out of home care to develop a strategic plan for providing sexual health education in Central Texas;
3. Developed group-based and individual tools for professionals working with youth;
4. Developed trainings for those working with youth; and
5. Implemented and monitored the strategic plan.

This project was completed in 2020. Please contact the Principal Investigator with any questions.