Bridging the Gap

If you are a support worker, or have support workers, chances are there is a big gap in knowledge and support. This is the sexual health gap.

While in Australia it isn’t a requirement to have a qualification to provide support work, even when you have training and qualifications to be a support worker, there is no sexual health training involved. As a sexual health expert, this is mind boggling to me. Sexual health is such a big part of everyone’s life. It is such a vulnerable area of our life and yet it is also the most ignored.

This is why, 7 years ago when I started my Masters degree that I also started developing my course for support workers. I did so much research while I was doing my Masters degree and I kept coming back to the same answer - there is no training for support workers in the area of sexual health. At the same time, I was also doing client therapeutic work. Providing therapeutic supports to people with disabilities and the gap of knowledge and support by the support teams were similar across the board.

So began my idea of building the professional development course - Support the Sexual Health Needs of People with Disabilities.

I spent 5 years doing the research and 1 year of writing the course. This isn’t a little course just thrown together. This is years of hard work using evidenced-based knowledge and skills summed up into an easy to learn format.

The course consists of 4 modules.

Module 1 - We look at the development of human sexuality, from birth through to end of life. We learn how disability can impact sexuality and what this can look like.

Module 2 - We take a look at the myths and stereotypes of disability and sexuality and break these down to gain a deep understanding of where they come from and how harmful they are.

Module 3 - We take a deep dive into sexual health needs. The sexual health needs are broken down and explained in depth with real world case studies.

Module 4 - Practical skills are taught. Here you learn how to identify sexual behaviours in context and what to do when sexual health is involved in your support role. We look at boundaries and what the scope of support is for sexual health.

All of these modules come with a video lecture and a set of reflection questions. The reflection questions support the learner to cement the knowledge in a practical way, while also providing opportunity to reflect on your own values and biases. Having the opportunity to reflect on these areas allows you to develop boundaries that keep you and the people you are supporting safe in the work environment.

This course provides a lot of personal and professional development. While keeping the scope of the role at the forefront in every part of the course.

I wanted to be able to provide a safe way for people in supporting and caring roles to provide a truly holistic approach to people they are supporting. I wanted to help people work around the stigma and shame that so often is attached to sexual health. I want to be able to make part of their jobs easier, while giving them confidence to support in respectable and appropriate ways.

This course is an investment that allows you to stand out above the crowd and support people in all areas of their life.

If you are a business owner and would prefer your staff to learn this course face to face, send an email to contact@pleasurepixel.com.au to discuss our consulting services.

For a limited time only, you can get the course for 50% off, when you use the code NDIS50 at checkout*.

See more here

*One course per person, offer is limited and is current at time of this blog being posted.