1. DATE: Spring 2015
HEALTH SCHOOL 1 1

2. What is Comprehensive Sexuality Education?
Get Real is a comprehensive sexuality education curriculum. Sexuality includes not only sexual behavior but also our genders, our bodies and how they work, and our values, attitudes, beliefs and feelings about life, love and the people our lives touch. Teaching comprehensive sexuality education helps young people to make more informed, and therefore healthier, decisions about their own lives.
Additional Talking Points: *The Educator/Teacher role is to provide facts and information, underscoring the focus on student health and safety
*The Parent Role is to impart family and community values and beliefs about sex and sexuality.
Students are actively encouraged to speak with their parents about their family values and beliefs about sexuality.
Family activities are sent home to serve as a starting place for the conversations between parents and children [MORE ON THIS LATER]
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3. What is Get Real Middle School?
Get Real: Comprehensive Sex Education That Works is a middle school program for 7th and 8th graders that delivers accurate, age-appropriate information and emphasizes healthy relationship skills and family involvement over the course of 18 classroom lessons.
Get Real empowers parents to communicate their values about sexual health and staying healthy. Each lesson has a take-home family activity to encourage ongoing conversations between students and the caring adults in their lives.
USE FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS
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4. Research shows that Get Real Works!!!
Students who receive Get Real in middle school are less likely to have sex.
Among students who received Get Real, 16% fewer boys and 15% fewer girls had sex compared to their peers who did not take Get Real.
Get Real is one of only a few middle school programs that reduces risky sexual behavior for BOTH boys and girls.
Boys and girls who received our curriculum increased their negotiation skills, and left 8th grade more equipped to communicate within relationships about delaying sex or setting boundaries.
Wellesley Centers for Women has completed a three-year evaluation of the middle school component of PPLM’s Get Real curriculum.
The evaluation findings demonstrate that Get Real works.
Among students who received Get Real, 16% fewer boys and 15% fewer girls had sex compared to their peers who did not take Get Real.
Get Real is one of only a few middle school programs that reduces risky sexual behavior for BOTH boys and girls.
For boys in particular, family involvement showed an added effect on delaying sex. Boys who completed the Get Real take-home activities in 6th grade were more likely to delay sex in the 8th grade than boys who did not complete these activities, highlighting the importance of parents and sons talking earlier and more frequently about sex.
These findings are particularly impressive because Get Real was tested among young people at high risk for early sexual intercourse.
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5. Get Real Curriculum Foundation
Framed in Social and Emotional Learning, emphasizing the importance of relationship skills, effective communication and responsible decision-making
Mapped to National Sex Education Standards and National Health Education Standards
Based on current research that shows effectiveness of long-term, comprehensive sexuality education programs
For Middle School and High School presentations
Get Real is aligned with what national experts recommend be taught to MIDDLE or HIGH schoolers. Research shows that long-term skills-building curriculum is more effective.
Trained teachers in the schools act as local resources for students with questions about sexual health
Resources:
For a list of relevant studies, see the Advocates For Youth website:
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6. Family and Community Involvement
Get Real supports parents as the primary sexuality educators of their children
For MS: Each lesson has a take-home family activity, complete with resources for parents
Students are directed to trusted adults in their lives and resources in their community
-Get Real Parent Resources are designed to help parents or other caring adults create an environment of trust and comfort in talking with their children about sex and sexuality. We know parents can make a real difference in their teen’s lives by talking early and talking often about sex. Get Real’s family take-home activities provide a framework and concrete tools to facilitate open and ongoing communication between parents and their kids.
This program recognizes parents as the primary sexuality educators of their children. 
We encourage that students be exposed to the whole curriculum, but if parents object strongly to a particular lesson, they may ask to have their students removed from that lesson. The school administration should make clear the process for parents to opt-out (or not).
FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL: The students in the Get Real program will be given take-home family activities, designed to start conversations and share information between parents and their child. We ask parents to please complete the activities with their student. We also suggest to students that if, for some reason, they are not able to complete the assignments with their parent(s), they can do so with a guardian or other caring adult.
Through these activities, resource packets, newsletters, and information on the PPLM parent education website, parents will explore their own values about sex and sexuality, learn developmentally appropriate facts and information and will develop the skills necessary to have ongoing and comfortable conversations with their children about this important topic.
FOR HIGH SCHOOL: Throughout the curriculum there are three take-home family interviews that students will be asked to conduct with their parent, or other caring adult. These are designed to create an opportunity for parents to impart personal and family values about relationships and communication.
Parent involvement helps to ensure the success of the Get Real program for students. In addition, the teacher delivering Get Real in the school is available to parents to answer questions and concerns about how to talk with their kids about sex and sexuality.
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7. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
SEL is the theoretical foundation of Get Real. The curriculum focuses on the following 5 SEL life skills.
Self-awareness
Self-management
Social awareness
Relationship skills
Responsible decision-making
For Middle School and High School presentations
SEL is the theoretical basis of Get Real:
Self-awareness -how well students know themselves and their values
Self-management - ability to manage their actions and decisions and to set short and long-term goals
Social awareness- how well students know – and are able to connect with and communicate with -- their community, family, peers
Relationship skills - the importance of honest and assertive communication with emphasis on refusal and negotiation skills
Responsible decision-making – being able to recognize the choices in every situation and to weigh the pros and cons of those choices in order to make a thoughtful decision
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8. Staying Healthy Abstinence and Postponement
Introduced from the beginning of the curriculum and addressed throughout as the healthiest choice
Multiple lessons dedicated to students generating an understanding and strategies for how to postpone sexual intercourse
Sexually Transmitted Infections/HIV
8th grade lessons dedicated to an overview of STIs, their transmission and prevention
Protection Methods
8th grade lessons dedicated to an overview of the most common protection methods used by sexually active teens
Decision Making, Negotiation and Refusal Skills
Majority of lessons address one or all of these skills in relation to healthy sexual decision making
USE FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS : Remind the group that the curriculum is designed to offer medically-accurate and age appropriate information and that it aligns with the National Health Education Standards.
This slide outlines the key topics covered in the Get Real curriculum.
[Introduce the Table of Contents]
-The sixth grade curriculum is focused on growth and human development, communication and boundary-setting skills within all relationships and decision making.
-The seventh grade curriculum introduces STIs and protection at the end of the unit, and prior to that is focused almost entirely on things like self-awareness and personal values, media literacy, safe school environments, sexual identity and healthy, assertive communication.
-In 8th grade the conversation around healthy sexuality continues, but the focus changes slightly from “what a person might choose to do over the course of a lifetime” to “how might the choice to engage in certain behaviors effect a person’s relationships and goals.”
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9. Staying Healthy Relationship Skills & Decision Making
Identifying healthy and unhealthy relationships
Refusal, negotiation and consent
Equality and responsibility in relationships
Social networking and media literacy
Accessing sexual health services
Maintaining Abstinence
Sexually Transmitted Infections/HIV
Protection Methods
Sexual Identity
Anatomy & Physiology
USE FOR HIGH SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS Remind the group that the curriculum is designed to offer medically-accurate and age appropriate information and that it aligns with the National Health Education Standards.
This slide outlines the key topics covered in the Get Real curriculum.
[Introduce the Table of Contents]
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10. School Logistics The Get Real program will run March - Mid-April
We will complete all 9 lessons.
Most lessons will take one class period
Some lesson may take two class periods
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