Youth Leadership Board Training

This weekend the Growing Our Own Youth program held its first Leadership Board Training. The training was held on October 20 at the American Red Cross and it was definitely a success. The goal was to educate board members on the dangers of risky behaviors and how to avoid those behaviors through maintaining healthy relationships. 

The morning started off with speakers, Kachina Kudroff and Ivy Singletary, who are SHAPE Peer Educators. They discussed sexual decision making, which included talking about STIs, communication in relationships, and they discussed pregnancy. They gave a SHAPE quiz to the students to see how much they actually knew about sex before giving their presentation and it was really interesting to see how confused some students were regarding certain myths about sexual behaviors. One of the questions stated: All STIs have symptoms. The answer was false, however many of the students thought that if someone got an STI they would definitely see symptoms from it. They quickly learned that isn’t always the case and most people never show signs of actually having an STI. The group learned so much from the SHAPE Peer Educators and they did a great job speaking about these tough issues. 

After a short break, the Youth Leadership Board welcomed Christina Clark, from the Alabama Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, to come speak. She presented a game where students had to create movie posters about the different STIs and present these posters to the group. Each poster included an STI and its symptoms, treatment, and how it was transmitted. The students really enjoyed this game! It was a great way to learn the different STIs. 

After lunch, the Youth Leadership Board had the pleasure of hearing Nic Carlisle from Aids Alabama speak. He discussed advocacy and how students need to pick something they are passionate about and advocate for it. His presentation was really great and led to interesting discussions among the students. I was so impressed with how passionate some students were about standing up for things they believe in and promoting these things in their schools. 

Overall, the Leadership Board Training went really well and each student that attended really took something away from the experience. The Growing Our Own Youth program is grateful to those students who participated in the conference. 

~ Frances