SHCP Alumni Weekend 2026 | Teaching at the Edge: Navigating Taboo Topics in Sexuality Education with Clarity, Care, and Sustainability

Sunday, September 27, 2026, 9:00 AM–1:15 PM ET

Online via Zoom

Continuing Education Offered

• 4 hours general social work synchronous interactive online
• 4 hours AASECT synchronous interactive online

Description

Sex educators routinely facilitate conversations about topics that may evoke stigma, discomfort, strong emotions, or conflicting values. Designed as a train-the-trainer experience, this interactive workshop centers educators while inviting counselors and therapists to approach the material through an educator’s lens. Using AI, pornography, addiction, sex work, and public-health discourse as examples, participants will examine practical methods for distinguishing myths from facts, responding to charged language and assumptions, creating safer learning environments, and navigating taboo topics without centering the facilitator as the sole authority. Emphasis is placed on developing adaptable strategies for teaching and discussing sensitive material with clarity, cultural humility, and care.

The workshop will also address the personal and professional demands of sexuality education in both formal sex ed settings and across all fields and disciplines where sex ed skills are valuable. Participants will explore strategies for maintaining appropriate boundaries, protecting their well-being, recognizing and interrupting burnout, and developing sustainable self-care practices. In an applied final session, participants will identify the transferable skills developed through sexuality education such as values clarification, inclusive communication, critical reflection, and comfort with complexity and create ways to integrate those skills into their own fields, practices, and disciplines.

Objectives

1. Apply at least three facilitation strategies for discussing or teaching taboo, stigmatized, and emotionally sensitive topics in ways that promote psychological safety, critical reflection, and respectful dialogue.
2. Examine charged topics such as AI, pornography, addiction, and sex work while recognizing bias, avoiding stigmatizing language, and distinguishing evidence from assumptions.
3. Identify personal and professional risk factors for burnout.
4. Develop an individualized self-care plan that includes boundaries, support systems, and sustainable practices for sexuality educators.
5. Create a concrete plan for transferring at least two sexuality-education skills such as values clarification, inclusive communication, managing discomfort, or facilitating complex conversations into their own professional practice or discipline.

Agenda

Sunday, September 27, 2026

• 9:00am–10:00am Welcome/Introductions and Community-building & Creating Safe-Space Activity
• 10:00am–11:00am Teaching Taboo Topics: AI, Porn & Addiction
• 11:00am–11:15am BREAK
• 11:15am–12:15pm Bypassing burnout: Self-care for Sex Educators
• 12:15pm–1:15pm Transferrable Skills: Sex Ed in Practice; Closing and Reflections

Instructor

Jenn Pollitt, PhD is the Assistant Director of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies and an Assistant Professor in the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University. She holds a PhD in Human Sexuality from Widener University. Dr. Pollitt currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, a national organization dedicated to advancing sexual freedom as a fundamental human right through policy, law and education. With over 15 years of experience as a sexuality educator, Dr. Pollitt has developed and taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses on topics including Men & Masculinities, Sexuality and Disability, Porn Literacy, Sexuality Education, and Pleasure. She has also created and facilitated trainings and curricula for professionals in nonprofit organizations, corporations, and labor unions—working with groups such as Lambda Legal, the New Jersey Association of Justice, the American Medical Student Association, and Philadelphia’s Men’s Center for Growth and Change. She developed the first comprehensive sexuality education course for law students, which was launched at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law in Fall 2025. Her work focuses on sex education, sexual and erotic agency, LGBTQIA+ rights, reproductive justice, and the intersections of sex, law, and policy. She also examines the influence of popular culture as one of the most powerful, and under-acknowledged, sources of informal sex education in the U.S. Dr. Pollitt’s work and commentary have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, Psychology Today, HuffPost, Business Insider, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The 19th News, NPR, WHYY, and Doctor Radio.

CE Approval Statement

This program meets the requirements for the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) and is approved for up to 4 CE credits. These CE credits may be applied toward AASECT certification and renewal of certification. University of Michigan Sexual Health Program, Provider #06-104D. Completion of this program does not ensure or guarantee AASECT certification. For further information please visit http://www.aasect.org/

The University of Michigan School of Social Work, provider #1212, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 5/15/2026–5/15/2029. Social workers completing this course receive 4 continuing education credits.

Please see the CE Policies page for more information about continuing education.