The Seduction of Screens: Human Needs in a High-Tech World

Nick Sufrinko | Healthy Teen Network, Marline Pearson, |Madison Area Technical College, and Peter Mortola | Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education & Counseling

Peter Mortola, Marline Pearson, and Nicholas Sufrinko each bring a unique perspective on the “seduction of screens,” and consider what human needs screens do and do not fulfill. A moderated Q&A follows three short presentations.

In Part 1, Peter links what we have learned from developmental theory and recent brain research with practices, conversations, and strategies that can help teens navigate through the perils of adolescence in healthy and safe ways. Why are phones so compelling and what basic needs do they fill? What do technology and sexuality have to do with the sometimes-conflicting needs for both affiliation and status? What’s with the call of phones?

In Part 2, Marline discusses engaging ways to assist youth in gaining a deep understanding of the profound impact of digital technology on their whole lives—as individuals, on relationships, on emotional, social, and sexual health. It’s not whether the technology is good or bad—it can be both. As with any tool what’s key is engaging and empowering youth to develop personal policies on their use of it that they can own.

In Part 3, Nicholas discusses new ways young adults use technology to build intimacy, and what happens when things do—and do not—go as planned. He’ll explore insights gathered while building a digital intimacy app for young adults and reflect on his own experiences with “catfishing,” a practice where users create deceptive identities on social media. Along the way, he’ll propose a few provocations for the future of sexuality.

Important Conversations about Sexting

Kris Gowen | Beyond the Talk and Leah Hass | Oregon Department of Human Services- My Future-My Choice

Sexting is now the norm among young adults: What are we doing to help youth prepare for this sexual activity? This session will demonstrate how a comprehensive sex ed approach can provide young people with the skills they need to make healthy decisions about sexting. Attendees will receive a framework to differentiate among different types of sexting, and place sexting in the context of normative youth development. The limited information on how social justice plays a role in sexting practices will also be addressed. Through an activity, participants will be invited to explore their own sexting values and better understand their peers’ values as well, building empathy for different perspectives. This presentation will challenge attendees’ current thinking about this important issue and provide them with skills to approach youth sexting using non-fear-based, non-shaming strategies

Sexuality in the Digital Age

Janis Whitlock | Cornell University

The digital age has ushered in many new and novel outlets for youth interested in accessing sexual information, adult entertainment, and social and sexual networking. However, the digital terrain is so new and quick to change that teens have largely left on their own to navigate the more sexualized elements of the digital world. This workshop will include activities designed to foster discussion about the nature and challenges of this new age as well as productive strategies and resources for meeting these.

The Power of Innovation: Reimagining School Supports for Pregnant and Parenting Youth

Jennifer Pitt | School District of Philadelphia

Imagine a school culture in which pregnant and parenting student rights are clearly defined through policy and procedure, one that is not only responsive to the needs of pregnant and parenting youth but also makes space for innovative approaches to addressing the complexities they experience in their educational trajectories. Learn how one school district has “doubled down” on the commitment to their youngest families through a comprehensive policy expansion focused on pregnant and parenting students and hear from the team leading adaptations and outreach in the COVID-19 era. See that policy come to life through innovative approaches including a chest/breastfeeding support initiative offered through a public-private-higher education partnership. This session will take you on the path from policy to practice with an added focus on sharing your story through effective communications strategies.

Sex Languages: Creating Cultural and Idiomatic Relevant Sexual Health Content in the Digital Space

Rayka Kumru Bayazit | tabukamu and Trilce Ortiz | Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Because not all sex languages are created equal. Taking into account cultural nuances, literacy level, behavior towards and language preferences is paramount when delivering impactful sexual health information to diverse audiences. During this session, attendees will learn the importance of creating content with a specific audience in mind as well as the importance of transcreating (conveying cultural and emotional context) when going from one language to another. Rayka will talk about tabukamu and creating content for Turkish audiences. Trilce will talk about the transcreation of Spot On and Chatea/Textea in Spanish and user research around Spanglish. Panelists will also share their experiences when creating content for an agency or organization versus their own digital platforms.

Sex, Friendships, and Social Support For LGB Girls In The Age Of COVID

Michele Ybarra | Center for Innovative Public Health Research

“I just need a break from everything. I’m also so tired of hearing of the COVID crap, I wish life could be back to normal. I miss it.” Can you relate?  Sexy texts, sad texts, supportive texts, we’ve read them all during COVID!  Using recent data from 14-18 year old sexual minority girls from across the United States, we will explore how girls talk about sex and friendships, and how these relationships have been impacted by the recent pandemic. What has been your experience? And what are you doing to support young people who are reaching out?

Sexpectations: Collective Learning for Sexual Liberation

Thalía Chicojay | Sexpectations

Sexpectations is a collective of young BIPOC based in Chicago with a passion for sexual liberation and equity. We provide young people with tools and resources to navigate technology, relationships, and sex through discussions about decision-making, consent, and sexuality. Through collective learning, we aim to practice harm reduction and dismantle cis-hetero-patriarchial norms around sex, dating, and identity.
This workshop will present a grassroots approach to creating spaces where conversations about dating, sex, and relationships can happen freely and without shame. Due to COVID-19, Sexpectations has not been able to facilitate workshops in classrooms, therefore, this workshop will focus on how we have utilized technology to stay connected to young folks. Rooted in the liberatory notion that young people have agency and ownership over their bodies and that their decisions and opinions matter, and should inform their education, this workshop will also discuss how Sexpectations internally addresses adultism, transformative justice, and community care. After this workshop, participants will understand how they can work to dismantle adultism and denconstruct sexual shame in their organizations and identify new ways they can utilize technology to make evidence-based sexual health education accessible to young people.

Community Resource Guide to Youth-Friendly Services: Strengthening Linkages and Referrals

Valerie Gavrila | Adolescent Health Initiative

Are you interested in strengthening your systems for referrals and linkages to youth-friendly services in your community? The Adolescent Health Initiative recently created a Community Resource Guide template and companion brief assessment worksheet to help your agency create an up-to-date guide for youth and youth-serving professionals. We’ll share this resource along with strategies for strengthening your community connections, so youth can take advantage of everything your community has to offer!

Oregon Teen Advisory Board Research and Tips for Parents/Caregivers Talking to Their Kids/Teens About Healthy Sexuality and Technology

Leah Haas | Oregon Department of Human Services- My Future-My Choice,  Abby Sprout | Newberg High School- MFMC Teen Advisory Board Member, and Yesenia Char | Bend Senior High School- MFMC Teen Advisory Board Member

During this session, two high school presenters from the My Future-My Choice Teen Advisory Board (TAB) will share data from surveys and interviews collected across Oregon in 2019. This data reflects the experiences that teens are having talking to their parents/caregivers about sexuality and other tough topics. TAB members will present the TAB Tip Sheet to support more effective and quality conversations between parents/caregivers and their kids/teens. Our teen presenters will guide participants through discussion and a role play activity to practice having meaningful and supportive conversations about healthy sexuality and technology. The target audience for this workshop is health educators, teachers, parents/caregivers, and young people.

Period Plática: Transcreating Digital Sex Education for Latinx Audiences

Trilce Ortiz and Silvia Beltran | Planned Parenthood Federation of America

This poster presentation will illustrate the final results of Latinx focused user research (UR) applied around tone in both Spanish and Spanglish, and niche specific needs that were the starting point for developing the content for Spot On, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA)’s period and birth control tracking app. Originally developed for a US-based, English speaking audience, Spot On is the first pilot on the process of transcreation for PPFA. Attendees will gain knowledge about the importance of cultural, educational and emotional relevancy and will be able to have an initial interaction with Spot On Latinx. By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to understand our approach for how to best serve Latinx audiences when delivering digital sex ed content.

TMI-GA: An APP for Young People by Young People

Kysha Parker and Tyiska Demery | Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential (GCAPP)
TECHNOLOGY…Our young people can’t get enough of it. So when it comes to sexuality how can we leverage that to our advantage? Well by joining the digital world of course. TMI-Georgia is a website and free app, that connects teens to sexual health information and services. Research shows that nearly half of all high school students have had sex by 12th grade. It’s important that with all the hustle and bustle of being an adolescent in this connected age that they’re still able to get access to medically accurate information. Knowledge is power and TMI-Georgia helps teens make healthier decisions by helping them 1) locate teen friendly clinics across the state, 2) allowing them to chat confidentially with a health educator for urgent or sensitive and 3) by giving them access to medically accurate information. Come explore our app for that was created for young people by young people.

Bridging the Gap: Helping Parents Have “The Talk” with Their Teens about Sex

Kathryn Rabuy, Maia Fulton-Black, and Maria Olivia Egemba | New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Parents just don’t understand? Both teens and parents value parental engagement, but many parents feel they lack the knowledge and comfort to talk to their teens about sex. Participants of this workshop will gain context from findings from focus groups with parents on teen communication, as well as lessons learned from workshops conducted with parents on effective ways to engage their teens around topics such as sexual health, sexuality and gender expression, and the role of technology in teens’ learning about sex.

Adolescent X: using multimedia storytelling to engage young people as experts on their own sexual and reproductive health and lives

Ireashia Bennett | University of Chicago

In this virtual poster presentation, participants will learn about the oral and visual participatory narrative methods–story circles and body mapping–employed in Ci3’s Adolescent X study. Adolescent X sought to understand the messages that young people receive about gender, sexuality, and health, and how they integrate these ideas into their lives. Attendees will learn about our findings and participate in the methods used in this study. Finally, they will hear a preview of Ci3’s Franky Podcast, co-produced with young people. The podcast serves as a vehicle for disseminating the study findings to wider audiences. Participants will hear a clip from Episode 1: Homecoming, On the Importance of Community, in which we hear young people describe how finding community made it possible to own their sexuality while navigating the confining expectations from family and society.

Avatars in Action: An Innovated Approach in Practicing Sex Education

Alexandra Cory | Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential (GCAPP)

Teaching sex education for the first time can be a daunting task for some teachers. Health and PE majors at Kennesaw State University were given the opportunity to practice teaching sex education lessons to middle school avatars using their on-site simulation lab. Students received 8 hours of classroom instruction and were given 15 minutes in the simulation lab to model. The lessons included STIs, gender identity and sexual orientation, and healthy relationships. This model allows students to practice teaching sex education before they are in front of real students, giving them experience at answering difficult questions and important classroom management skills. This poster will highlight the various ways a simulation lab could better prepare future sex educators.

Positive Choices Program: Working with Youth in Systems of Care

Ana Kay Yaghoubian and Courtney Smalt | Adagio Health

In this session we will explore the evolution of the Positive Choices Program, a comprehensive sexual-health education program for youth in systems of care. The Positive Choices Program is federally funded from the Office of Population Affairs. The program uses a holistic health approach to create safe, supportive and trauma-informed environments, with links and referrals to youth-friendly services within their communities to promote positive sexual health outcomes. The Positive Choices Program includes replication of an evidence-based curriculum with an at-risk population and an on-going needs assessment and process evaluation. This session will include a discussion of continuous quality improvement strategies, highlight the successful implementation components, the lessons learned, and how the program has adapted to virtual delivery during COVID- 19.

Analyzing the Effectiveness of the Dual Sex Education Program on STI Knowledge for Participants in the ICAN Project

Tomeka Beamon | My Brother’s Keeper

The ICAN Project is designed to increase school-based health educators, parents and their children, and other adolescent’s knowledge regarding sexual and reproductive health. The ultimate outcome is to reduce the incidence of unplanned adolescent pregnancies, HIV/STDs, and homophobia. The project will consist of three components that address the specific training and educational needs of: (1) School-Based Health Educator, (2) Parent and their children, and, (3) other Adolescents.

Donors, Surrogates, & Technology: Overhauling How We Talk about Reproduction & Identity with Youth

Rachel Ginocchio | Roads To Family

Imagine yourself sitting in your high school sex ed class, learning for the 100th time that sex makes babies. You have no connection to that message because you yourself were conceived with sperm from a donor. Just last night, you logged onto 23andMe and discovered 25 half-siblings across 8 countries. You stayed up late, combing through their Instagram posts. These types of experiences are more common than you might imagine and have a huge impact on teens’ sense of self, belonging, and relationships—the cornerstones of a healthy sexual identity. With advances in medicine and technology, comes a responsibility to explain human reproduction in a brand new way—one that includes reproductive technology: egg and sperm donors, surrogacy, and assisted reproduction. Through this eye-opening workshop, participants will come away with the knowledge to teach and talk honestly, openly, and inclusively about human reproduction.

Your Connection Is Loading…Love, Sex, and Intimacy Through Technology In the COVID-19 Age

Pidgeon Pagonis | Intersex Justice Project, Mia Davis | tabú, Tanya Turner | Sexy Sex Ed, and Eva Sweeney

What happens when traditional sex-ed curricula persistently leave out of the conversation youth from marginalized geographic, racial, and sexual groups? These young people take action into their own hands, advocate for themselves, as they amplify the voice of their community through social media and digital technology. Their work has become even more critical during COVID-19 pandemic as young people seek guidance on how to sex safely. Podcasts, viral videos, TikTok, online classes, and merch are some of the strategies they use to reach and mobilize their audience to make sure no one is left out. This conversational panel will address the strengths and challenges of using various digital and non-digital strategies to promote sexual health. Pidgeon Pagonis, your local herma, will share how they has brought the interests of the intersex community to the forefront through viral Buzzfeed videos and a documentary film. Entrepreneur, Mia Davis, will share her experience building TalkTabu, a modern approach to sex ed. Tanya Turner, rural sex educator, pleasure witch, and founder of Appalachian sex ed collective, Sexy Sex Ed, will discuss how to talk sex in rural and conservative settings. Author and educator, Eva Sweeney, will address how to include people with disabilities in the discussion of healthy and pleasurable sex.

Engaging Youth in Designing Outreach and Services to Themselves: Three Illustrations

Whitney French | Teen Health Mississippi, Jessica Beltran | San Ysidro Health, and Emily Wasson | Essential Access Health

Any program designer or marketing professional worth their salt will recommend that the intended consumers of a product or service be consulted in the product’s design and promotion. After all, what’s the point of the invention if there are no customers interested in or aware of it. So too is this the case for youth programming. This presentation will feature three organizations that engagedyouth for the development and implementation of youth-friendly health messages and health services. Presenters will describe the various projects they undertook including establishing an Instagram platform with sexual health content designed and maintained by youth; forming a digital youth advisory board on Instagram to inform the content of a reproductive health information website foryouth; and developing a youth-friendly contraceptive options campaign and clinical services recommendations.Presenters will describe their initiatives’ purposes, youth engagement processes, challenges faced, and outcomes achieved. Session participants can post their own youth engagement successes and challenges in the session chat room.

What Does It Look like to Support Young Parents…literally?

Shanne Sowards | Squires and Valerie Sedivy and Ella Dorval Hall | Healthy Teen Network

We know how important it is to offer support to young parents, and we know you do too. This session will move past the why and focus on how to do this, leaving you with concrete, practical strategies. You’ll learn what young fathers in Baltimore told us about what it was like trying to get help for themselves and their children and what science says about ways to build meaningful connections with young fathers. You’ll also hear what young mothers in Baltimore have to say about co-parenting and what they need to be successful parents and families. We’ll tie all of this together with specific recommendations you can put into action, whether your role is education, advocacy, or working directly with these young people.

Sexual and Reproductive Health Policies Affecting Youth: A Look at What’s Ahead

Bob Reeg | Healthy Teen Network, Jennifer Driver | SIECUS, Rachel Fey | Power to Decide, and Kate D’Adamo |  Reframe Health and Justice

By the time of Healthy Teen Network’s 2020 annual conference, national elections, including for President of the United States and the U.S. Congress, will have just concluded. What more opportune time to offer a 2021 reproductive justice public policy forecast from subject matter experts in reproductive justice policy generally and adolescent sexual and reproductive health specifically? By the time of Healthy Teen Network’s 2020 annual conference, national elections, including for President of the United States and the U.S. Congress, will have just concluded. What more opportune time to offer a 2021 reproductive justice public policy forecast from subject matter experts in reproductive justice policy generally and adolescent sexual and reproductive health specifically? Hear the prognosis on the good, the bad, and the ugly to come at the national government level from a panel of savvy public policy advocates. Panelists will introduce session participants to The Blueprint for Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice, a proactive policy agenda to advance sexual and reproductive health in the United States and around the world. They will review the status of and offer predictions for key adolescent sexual and reproductive health programs, such as the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP) and activities of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and Sexual Health (DASH). Also to be covered in this session are legislative developments related to the protection of children from exploitation online and implications of those laws on youth access to sexual health information and services.