Sexual health is important throughout life. A healthy start gives children the capacity to develop a positive self image and self awareness and the potential to establish satisfying relationships. During adolescence and early adulthood, decisions about sexual activity, reproduction and parenthood become extremely important. The best possible choices can be made when information, education and supports are in place from the very beginning as a foundation to facilitate a healthier lifestyle.The development of sexuality and emergence of our sexual selves is something that happens to everyone. Some people wrongly regard disabled people as not developing sexually in the same way as non-disabled people. While it is true that puberty may begin a little later and that some disabilities can affect sexual performance, disability does not prevent sexual maturity, or remove sexual feelings, desires or curiosity. People with disabilities also have the right to access education – education is one of the condition for self-determination and empowerment. In order to create the conditions of access to accessible sexual health education, it is necessary not only to educate people with disabilities themselves, but furthermore their parents as well as professionals, caregivers, adult educators and teachers. This international project in cooperation with 7 partners aims increase youth workers' /teachers' experience and competence both theoretically and practically in the field of sexual health education of the young people with disabilities . The overall goal of this partnership is, to increase access for disabled persons to appropriate, comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education. The initiative will work towards the development of policies and appropriate programmes to ensure that young people living with learning disabilities 10-20 enjoy intimate relationships without putting themselves at risk (sexual abuse, violence, pregnancy..etc)and that they have access as others to sexual and reproductive health information . It will achieve this by facilitating exchange between organisations that are working with people with learning disabilities, and organisations who would like to initiate or expand their work in this field. THE OBJECTIVES ARE : -Minimize the problems of disabled youth in sexual matters , - To prevent the problems that youth with disabilities may experience in the field of sexual development, -To increase the social and educational inclusion of people with disabilities, - To develop independent living skills , - Develop more acceptable behaviors to express their sexuality, - To facility communication skills and externalized behaviour regarding the sexual abuse in the past in order to solve this issue -Awareness raising of the sexual and reproductive rights of people with disabilities, -Trained staff to support people with disabilities in being aware and making use of their rights, -Public awareness for the rights of people with disabilities, -Improved institutional settings to enable training of staff and sexual education for clients with disabilities. • Developing young people ’s with disabilities personal skills - (e.g. lifeskills including communication, decision-making, negotiation, confidence building etc…) through sexual health education and promotion; OUTCOMES : - A WEBSITE - A Booklet of Exchange Of Best Practices '' : In this guide book we will share the methodologies being already used in partner organizations or developed altogether with the experiences gained during the project implementation.-A'' PARENTS ' WORKBOOK'' - SEXUALITY EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS WITH DISABILITIES The first TTM will be dedicated to project management while from the second onwards, after the training, during each Meeting we will focus on the analysis of specific BP adopted / or identified , the meetings will be enriched with a workshop planned by the hosting partner .Each organization will draw up a detailed program of the meeting of its competence.The meetings will last 2 days with the participant of 2 youth workers ;the contact persons who will take care of the project management and other members in charge of experts and with specific skills in relation to the objectives of the meetings may participate.There will also be one training - peer to peer in Portugal where the youth workers will Exchange their best practices ç Teachers' and youth workers' improved experience and competence in the field of sexual education and inclusion will ensure that youth with disabilities gain basic living skills. With the Project, the sexual education will be more interactive and youth with disabilities will get an interesting and meaningful way to learn sexual health issues. They will benefit from the project by developing their competences in caring of and respecting their own and others´ sexual health. In the longer time scale, it could be foreseen the pupils will achieve better sexual health.
The overall goal of this partnership is, to increase access for disabled persons to appropriate, comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education PROJECT OBJECTIVES: To prevent the problems that youth with disabilities may experience in the field of sexual development To increase the social and educational inclusion of people with disabilities To reduce the risk of exposure to sexual abuse, For youth living with disabilities to develop independent living skills, To Raise awareness about body care To gain competence to take more responsibility for his/her gender Develop more acceptable behaviours to express their sexuality, - To facility communication skills and externalized behaviour regarding the sexual abuse in the past in order to solve this issue Awareness-raising of the sexual and reproductive rights of people with disabilities To train staff to support people with disabilities in being aware and making use of their rights, To create public awareness for the rights of people with disabilities, Improved institutional settings to enable training of staff and sexual education for clients with disabilities.
As a collective of organisations committed to supporting young people we applied to pursue this project as we felt we could learn and share with each other about the similarities and differences of supporting young people with special educational needs to engage in sexuality education. We recognise that sexuality education is a unique and instrumental topic of focus and we wanted the opportunity to work collective to address these challenges both locally and nationally .