ETR Associates Receives 2-Year Mary Wohlford Foundation Grant
ETR Associates recently received a 2-year grant from the Mary Wohlford Foundation to expand the Working to Institutionalize Sexuality Education (WISE) Initiative within the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). The goal of the WISE SFUSD program is to increase the implementation of sustainable comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in classrooms throughout the district.
SFUSD, like many districts throughout California, faces numerous challenges in implementing effective and consistent CSE that is in compliance with the California Sexual Health and HIV Prevention Education Act of 2004. Challenges include comfort in providing CSE content, prioritization of CSE in a heavily burdened system of required content, and the significant financial and staff resources necessary to provide CSE to all students in a district with 115 schools and over 55,000 students. In addition to these challenges, SFUSD has seen significant cuts in the national funding that supports their CSE program.
The Mary Wohlford Foundation grant will support WISE in focusing additional efforts in the collaboration between SFUSD and Planned Parenthood--Shasta Pacific. Bythe end of the grant period, SFUSD will have pilot tested a more integrative model of CSE implementation through the targeted capacity building of school-based nurses and teachers in middle and elementary schools in partnership with Planned Parenthood educators. This model will focus on providing the support necessary for schools and teachers to feel competent in the effective delivery of CSE, and will link CSE with other related health topics to increase the institutionalization of the delivery and monitoring of these programs.
About the WISE Initiative: WISE is a national initiative developed by the Grove Foundation with support from the Ford Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Funding for ETR's California WISE Initiative comes through the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The overall goal of WISE is to decrease teen pregnancy and STD/HIV rates among students by improving and increasing access to school-based comprehensive sexuality education. The WISE Initiative works within the public school system to improve and institutionalize CSE. This approach results in more sustainable CSE that can have an impact on a greater number of students with more consistency. ETR Associates' California WISE Initiative is one of nine WISE sites throughout the nation.
For more information about ETR Associates' California WISE Initiative, please contact Bruce Weiss, ETR Associates Director of Program Services, at bruce.weiss@etr.org.
