Components Of Sexual Health Programs For Special Education Students And Pre-Service Teachers

Abstract

The present paper investigates the existing literature in order to identify potential components for the development of Sexual Health Programs (SHP) for Special Education (SE) students. Sexual Health Education programs (SHE programs) are considered a recognized and accepted practice in educational systems in Israel and around the world (Weisblay, 2010). The main purpose of SHE programs is to provide students with knowledge and the ability to defend themselves against sexual violence, sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, as well as to offer information and knowledge of healthy, responsible sexual behaviours (Brosch, 2007; Washington State Department of Health, 2011;Winges-Yanez, 2014). SHE programs may be of particular importance to people with disabilities and to special education students. The reasons of this importance are presented in the present paper. The research questions of the current systematic review are: (1) Are there SHPs in the area of SE? (2) Among the general SHPs, which factors are significant to SE students and pre-service teachers, in terms of addressing sexuality to persons with special needs? The results of the systematic review (14 studies met the specific inclusion criteria) are presented in the light of designing SHPs for SE pre-service teachers. The review shows that in special education frameworks there is a real need and importance in programs for the study of sexual health education, both in the context of knowledge acquisition, insight and the formulation of values, and in the context of preventing exploitation and dangerous or inappropriate behaviours.

Pre-Service Teachers attitudes and knowledge concerning Sexual Health Education in the field of Special Education

“…While some SHE programs in SE have been recently developed in Israel (Lachover & Argaman, 2007;Manor-Binyamini, Schreiber-Divon & Stein, 2013), there have not yet been sufficient studies of the impact of these programs on the teachers' attitudes and knowledge in relation to SHE for persons with special needs (Gerchenovitch & Rusu, 2018). One study was carried out in Israel investigating the effect of a program preparing the teachers to conduct SHE in a SE school (Manor-Binyamini et al, 2013), but this program focused mainly on the prevention of sexual harassment.…”

“…Based on the results of a literature systematic review aiming to identify the components of SHE curricula in the field of Special Education (Gerchenovitch & Rusu, 2018), a new SHE curriculum was formulated by the authors, together with other experts in the field of SE in Israel. This curriculum was delivered by the researcher (YG) and other three lecturers to pre-service teachers in SE at four colleges in Israel, during the 2017-2018 academic year (language of teaching: Hebrew).…”