ADVOCATES FOR YOUTH

Rights. Respect. Responsibility.^®: What Educators Can Do

Research indicates that when young people feel connected to school, community, and family and have access to sexual health information and services, they are better able to delay sexual initiation and to use contraception, including condoms, when they eventually initiate sexual intercourse. Young people need medically accurate information about their sexual health and opportunities to discuss with adults they trust the issues important to their development, such as puberty, relationships, intimacy, and sexuality. Regardless of the policy environment in your school, you can help young people to become sexually responsible adults. Let young people know that you respect and value them. Other ways you can bring the values of Rights. Respect. Responsibility.^® to your classroom include:

1. Hang the Rights. Respect. Responsibility.^® posters. Click here to order additional, or larger, copies.
2. Encourage students to identify their personal, family, community, and religious values related to sexual health and to respect values that differ from their own. Click here to view Advocates' lesson plans, Family Messages or Talking about Sexuality and Values.
3. Encourage discussion about the benefits of delaying sexual initiation. Click here to view one of Advocates' lesson plan, Teaching Abstinence as a Part of Comprehensive Sexuality Education: What Is Abstinence?.
4. Provide youth with opportunities to discuss relationships, intimacy, love, and commitment. Use popular TV shows, movies, literature, and music to start discussions.

5. Encourage youth to talk with their parents about sexuality. Provide take-home exercises for parents and young people to do together. Invite parents to participate in classroom discussions. 
6. Outspokenly oppose sexual harassment.
7. Actively oppose discrimination and violence directed at youth of color, at gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth (GLBT), and at youth who may be perceived as GLBT.
8. Use role-plays to help young people develop the communication and negotiation skills they will need to discuss sexual health issues with their parents, family, friends, and partner.
9. Advocate for better sexuality education in your school or state. Speak at a PTA meeting about the importance of comprehensive sexuality education. Build a diverse coalition of parents, teachers, health care providers, and youth to speak out in favor of comprehensive sexuality education. Lobby administrators and school board for research-based, medically accurate sexuality education. Contact Advocates for Youth for help finding resources to promote comprehensive sexuality education.
10. Ask the PTA to sponsor Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month (during May) or Let's Talk Month (during October) at your school. (Click on the links above to download a planning guide.)
11. Sign the petition, "I Support Young People's Right to Be Responsible."

Ready to do more?

13. Express respect for responsible sexual health behavior.
14. Provide medically accurate sexual health information, including information about contraception and disease prevention.
15. Involve youth in planning, designing, and implementing a comprehensive sexuality education program.
16. Make the class a safe place where youth can ask questions and get answers. Start with a Discussion Box so youth can ask questions anonymously.
17. Ask students to create a list of community resources for confidential family planning and disease prevention and treatment, including Web sites and hotlines.