Engage with the Disability-inclusive Sexual Health Network (DSHN)

By Gracee Wallach
Communications Coordinator, DSHN (Disability-inclusive Sexual Health Network) | SexEdVA

Shenandoah Valley parent Lynda Chandler recalled when her son Valor, who is on the autism spectrum, reached the age when most students receive sexual health education. The school excused Valor from attending the class because, Chandler inferred, that was easier than making the curriculum inclusive.

The message the Chandler’s received was “People with disabilities aren’t sexual, so they don’t really need this information anyway.” Such dismissal from schools and the public is not uncommon, and neither is the misconception that all people with disabilities are asexual and aromantic. These responses harm people with disabilities like Valor by preventing them from accessing this essential information.

Because people with disabilities experience the highest rates of mental, emotional, and physical abuse, when this population does receive programming, it often focuses narrowly on abuse prevention. However, disability advocates across Virginia are working to increase people with disabilities’ access to more holistic sexual health education. This past July, the General Assembly added section 22.1-217.03 to the Code of Virginia, requiring that students with disabilities’ “individualized education program (IEP) teams consider the need for age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate instruction related to sexual health” topics.

A new statewide initiative to develop disability-inclusive sexual health education programming comes out of James Madison University’s Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services (IIHHS). For more than two decades, IIHHS’ SexEdVA programs have provided free, evidence-based sexual health programming to youth across the region. SexEdVA is now harnessing its years of gathered experience, trust, and relationships to move beyond direct programming and toward building the capacity and networks of service providers across the state. It was most recently awarded $2.87 million over a three-year period from the U.S. Office of Population Affairs to develop the Disability-inclusive Sexual Health Network (DSHN).

DSHN will coordinate, support, and fund a multidisciplinary network of Virginia-based partners to develop and test interventions that improve optimal health, prevent teen pregnancy, and address sexually transmitted infections within the key priority area of youth with disabilities.

Taking a positive sexual health approach, DSHN encourages interventions to uplift people with disabilities as agents rather than objects and to discuss “mutually respectful, equitable, happy, healthy, positive, pleasurable relationships so that students may understand what those look like, rather than focusing only on what they do not want or what to say ‘no’ to.” This approach is proven to reduce feelings of pressure to have sex, increase likelihood of leaving and getting help for abusive relationships, and increase use of protection against STIs and pregnancy. Operating off the idea that “knowledge is power,” SexEdVA programs provide non-judgemental, medically accurate information to empower youth of all identities to make the best health decisions for their lives.

Folks connected to organizations and passionate about addressing this issue, regardless of their sexual health expertise, are eligible and encouraged to submit a letter of interest to the DSHN Call for Innovation Partners (bit.ly/cfip2020) by November 18th. Anyone interested in collaborating with, learning from, and advising disability-inclusive sexual health initiatives may sign up through bit.ly/dshnimpactteams.

Current Innovation Partners include the Shenandoah Valley Autism Partnership (SVAP), of which Lynda Chandler is one of the group’s many autism-connected parents and professionals providing educational, medical, financial, and personal support and community to people with autism and their families. With DSHN, SVAP hopes to integrate sexual health education into its monthly social events for teens with autism and other disabilities. Another partner, The Partnership for People with Disabilities at VCU, is taking an adaptive approach, modifying their current adult-oriented programs—LEAP, which focuses on healthy relationships, boundaries, and touch; and CHAT, a health advocacy training—to be relevant and accessible for youth.

DSHN staff have seen firsthand the barriers youth with disabilities face in receiving sexual health education. While delivering programming in middle school P.E. classes with another SexEdVA program, Kristi Van Sickle, now DSHN’s Training & Curriculum Coordinator, found that “the schools did not always have enough resources to support students with disabilities in the ways they deserved or were federally mandated to and, unsure of where else to place them, would assign many students with disabilities to four or five P.E. classes per day.” Van Sickle and her co-instructor were also not given information about the accommodations students with disabilities needed to learn. Even if they had the information to make adaptations, though, Van Sickle said, they desperately needed a sexual health curriculum designed from the beginning to be inclusive and accessible for people with disabilities.

Disability-inclusion “goes beyond ramps and sign language interpreters, beyond just being invited,” Chandler said. “It’s creating opportunities for sharing, actively engaging with, and valuing people with disabilities’ thoughts and opinions.”

Hoping future youth will be recognized and engaged as participants on similar levels to their peers, Chandler said “It all comes down to empathy, to understanding that students with disabilities have the same wants and needs as everyone else—educationally, socially, emotionally, and sexually.” DSHN is founded on these values, with youth and people with disabilities’ voices and perspectives central to the discussion, planning, and implementation of the project.