Blindfish RSE

I have decided to put together another reading list. This time focusing on the specific overlap between RSE and faith. Including a link on this list is not an explicit recommendation of their full content but as examples of what is being written about the connections between the two field.  (List is not yet complete and will be expanded)  Sadly some links to journal articles are behind a paywall. If you contact the article's author on  www.researchgate.net  you will often find them willing to email you a copy for free.  Websites and free downloads Abrahamic Commentary on the English DfE RSE Legislation   Jewish, Christian and Islamic notes on each learning outcome within the 2019 English RS(H)E statutory guidance for schools.  Faith, values and sex and relationships education (guidance from the sex education forum that is showing its age but still an interesting read) Books The Sex Thing: Reimagining conversations with young people about sex * (A cont...

I love making new relationships and sex education resources. " See It Shout It ", is the latest resource I have made to help young people grow in confidence to verbalise sex related words. I was asked how I choose the 31 icons that made the resource and I thought the creation process might be interesting to talk about.  Normally I create activities that can be shared digitally and then printed out or used with a projector. But sometimes I am involved in creating physical products. The process is similar for both but there are a few extra steps with making a physical product to be sold. The barriers to start making your own high quality resources is lower then ever and new creators can always bring a fresh perspective to a topic.  I have worked in the sex education field for over 15 years and this topic is what I know best but I'm sure that the same basic process can be applied to many different subjects. I am going to share the process I went through creating " See I...

Nearly 1 in 10 young people have read 50 Shades of Grey say relationships and sexual health education experts. Esteem Resource Network, a project of the charity ACET (AIDS Care, Education and Training) has more than 25 years of experience in delivering workshops to young people on issues related to self-esteem, relationships and sexual health. As part of a larger study, to be released later this year, a survey carried out by Esteem has found that almost 10% of young people report reading an explicit sex scene from 50 Shades of Grey. Unlike the adult market, this anonymous survey shows that male readership (12%) doubles that of than female readership (6%) amongst young people. More than 1,000 12-16 year olds were asked if, when and how they had encountered written and visual explicit sex scenes. The preliminary findings of the survey show that 67% of young people have seen explicit sex scenes, whilst 47% have encountered them in written form. Gareth Cheesman...

This is just a quick update to share my powerpoint from the Esteem Resource Network update event and link to a few resources I looked at during my research.  PowerPoint Presentation  WHO definition of sexual health Fpa Sexual Wellbeing and Pleasure document Youtube videos  50 Shades of Grey Trailer Home office rape prevention advert  Sex+ Consent video Background reading Fetish Sex: A Complete Guide to Sexual Fetishes 50 Shades of Grey reading by a Sex and Relationship Educator and if you are super keen  Fifty Shades of Grey This is a very expensive but very useful collection of articles   The Politics of Pleasure in Sexuality Education: Pleasure Bound (Routledge Research in Education)

Today I am sharing a free resource I have made to help teenagers think about the type of images they are sharing online and by direct messages. I class this resource as in BETA, it is just my first attempt at making these images and I want to reshoot the photos. Get rid of the cluttered backgrounds and I need to find a male mannequin to use as well. You can find all the images I use at  Sexting Images Resources I have tested these images in a number of lessons for 14-15 year olds. The way I use them is getting the young people into small groups and asking them to put them in order from most risky images to share to least risky. They create a continuum of risk. Then we talk through a number of follow up questions.  Which images would it be ok to share on social network? Which images might be ok to share by direct message, such as snapchat or MMS? Which images should we never share? Which images do you think could get people into trouble with the police? Which ...

Over the last 2 weeks, for the first time I have taught a full Sex and Relationship Education trainer course. In the past I have helped out on someone elses course and have lead workshops on specific topics at events/conferences. This was the first time I took  responsibility for an entire course. The course I taught is the 4 day  Esteem Resource Network  course. This was the course I was originally trained in and 5 years and 500+ hours of classroom experience later I was now teaching the course. The course had 10 people and I loved opening up the wide field of Relationship and Sex Education to them.  On the course I had 1 co worker, 1 local church based child and family worker, 2 third year youth work students (one who has been on placement with me) and a herd of 6 second year youth work students. So basically everyone was a youth worker or similar  This helped me as it's the group of people I work with the most. I know ...

Yesterday I was invited to speak on the Chester university Christian youth work course all about the importance of sex and relationship education, especially for youth worker. We got to cover lots of great stuff. I promised to post on here links to a couple of things I mentioned. If you are interested in attending the training I mentioned email me at Gareth@cscw.org.uk  The Sex Education Forum's guide to SRE within the youth service   The Department of Health recently published  Sexual health improvement framework

Today I shared another resource listing the agree disagree statement I often use in Relationship lessons. I find agree disagree activities as a bit of a two edge sword. Sometimes they are great and sometimes they just seem flat.  I think agree/disagree activities work well if young people in the group do not all think the same. The true value in agree/disagree activities is the discussion it can stir up. The discussion is the point where young people learn things and develop their attitudes. The statements need to be crafted to try and divide opinion and stir up this discussion. When the statements do not divide group opinion then rarely will I get a good follow up discussion. The problem is that the statements that work well for one group do not work for another group.  The temptation is to try and pick truly controversial issues but I have had as much success with the historically controversial issues (abortion, porn etc) as the more s...

Please make use of all these notes/links from my session today at the Esteem Resource Network Conference looking at the topic "Let’s talk about porn" Firstly my presentation Why talk about Porn? on Prezi Documents Sheffield Centre for HIV and Sexual Healthwith Brook, FPA, The National Youth Agency People and Pornography - A Briefing for Workers NSPCC sexting study Summary report of the qualitative study Full report of the qualitative study   McAfee The Digital Divide: How the Online Behavior of Teens is Getting Past Parents  Digital Divide BBC Newsbeat Survey  Men worried about Porn Sex Education Vs Pornography statistics taken from show episodes, they are currently unavailable but you can find useful stuff at their sexperince website   Youtube clip from Friends episode about the need to turn off the porn Books I may not agree with everything in these books but they have some interesting bits. Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain ...

The final Project I visited in Phnom Penh was Daughters of Cambodia a organization reaching out to victims of sex trafficking in Cambodia. Looking at this project and the two other sexual health related projects in Phnom Penh has made me think about writing an awareness resources for use in British school. Not sure if this would be a lesson, a part of a lesson or an assembly. Need to put some thought into it but I'm sure it would be positive for young people to gain a broader perspective.   Daughters of Cambodia looks to work with individuals who want to get out of the commercial sex industry but feel themselves trapped. The project outlines two areas of need for those wanting to get out of the industry, internal capacity (Emotional healing, self esteem and confidence) and external resources (being able to still provide food for a family for example). Using this two pronged approach Daughters of Cambodia seeks to help wom...

Fighting for love? I love dystopian future stories. I don't know maybe there it is the part of me that loves to watch how things might fall apart. From the bleak Joss Whedon Firefly and Dollhouse  TV shows or the amazing Metatropolis  anthology to this new trilogy of books and 1st film the Hunger Games. By Suzanne Collins this triology explores a bleak near future where America has collapsed and ruled with an Iron Fist the capital city holds 12 districts under its thumb treating them as slave labour. Barely able to survive, working back breaking jobs the vast majority of the population serve the few rich capital city dwellers. As part of the capitals drive to keep the districts under heal and broken they city forces each district to select 2 young people to fight to the death in a televised event called the Hunger Games. The games themselves unfold in a very similar way to the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale  but the world they are set in is ...