Welcome to the Birds and Bees in Youth Work.
We really dreamt about this project to happen.
It all started with a looong conversation some of us had during the ToT (The famous Training of Trainers of Salto-Youth) in Budapest back in September 2019. We all complained about the absence of good quality sexual education programs in our regions and criticized the national politics, not ready to offer the support young people need, neither the training the youth workers require. After all the talking we said we would need to do something about it. One thing is so good about the ToT is that it helps you create a strong network of people to work with on the European level. It took us 2 years to prepare the project for funding and 2 years more to make it happen.
And who are we really?
We are a team of representatives of 5 European organizations (list all five), each specialized in some specific area of youth work. Read more about us bellow. The diversity of our backgrounds helped us to approach sexual education in youth work from different perspectives. We took into consideration many aspects that we think helped to form a strong content: intercultural context, intersectionality, human rights education, and creative methodologies.
We created 2 training courses for 30 youth workers with 3 months in between. It helped to put into practice the first part of the training course and to deepen the practice of the second course. This created a community of learners and educators that later brought back their new competences to their communities.
The main result of our work is this website.
Our page offers you a content on sexual education to study which is specifically designed for youth workers. The website also has references for further resources such as books, videos, podcast and more.
Our unique methodology proposal is the cards game on sexual education. You can use it with groups to create debates, discussions, and what’s most important, support their learning through fun activities.
To help you reflect on what you are in the terrain of sexual education for youth we have designed this SELF-Assessment tool. It can be used individually or with groups.
This Framework is applicable to numerous scenarios. You can adapt it to a year-long programme and/or try to squeeze it into a several hour workshop. Let us know how it works!
As you probably know, youth work has so many faces and so many realities. You might be involved in a local youth club that happens after school, or support a group of scouts, or lead theatre workshops on weekends. You might be a leader of youth camps in summer or someone who makes possible international volunteering camps or youth exchanges. In any of these places, young people bring their excitement and worries with them. They bring their sexual beings with them as well and you need to know how to support them the best way possible. This does not mean though you need to become an expert. However, you need to know the basics and explore further if interested in some topic of Comprehensive Sexual Education.
On this page, you will find a content on Comprehensive Sexual Education that is divided into eight chapters, all based on a different topic with several subtopics in each.
Chapters are full of Tips and Tricks, ideas and suggestions for activities based on our experience. You will also find reference for the GAME Cards we have developed based on this content, that you can download, print out and offer as activity for your group.
Do not forget to look around the website: We have a huge collection of FURTHER Resources for you!
You might be asking: But what is so special about THIS content. I am sure there is enough content out there on the internet? Well, yes, there is a lot. Probably even too much. For all sorts of groups, in many different languages, of different styles and colour and interface.
But!
None of them is designed for youth workers specifically.
None of them are in English that would mix cultures (European in our case).
None of them is based on the Human Rights approach, intersectionality, and inclusion.
Before you start exploring the content, we invite you to take some moment for self-reflection about your attitude towards your personal sexual education journey and fill go through the questions in this REFLECTION TEST. This test is just for you and serves as a starting point for everything else you will find on this website.
Now, we will let you go and to immerse yourself into the wisdom of sexual education. Enjoy!
