Creating A Future Together (CrAFT)
Creating A Future Together (CrAFT) is a comprehensive sexuality education curriculum designed to help youth make informed decisions regarding their sexual and reproductive health, thus improving their physical and mental wellness. Students of CrAFT will learn about gender identity, puberty, sexuality in the media, qualities of healthy friendships and relationships, STI prevention, contraception, healthy coping skills, and more!
Developed in-house at IWES, CrAFT features a Human Rights-infused, Gender-Transformative, Trauma-informed approach to sex education. Rooted in best evidence and best practices in the field of sex education (National Sexuality Education Standards) and aligned with Louisiana grade level expectations for health education across grades 7-12, this curriculum is as comprehensive as we can get within the state law, ensuring our youth are getting the best information to support their health and futures. The CrAFT approach integrates diverse pedagogical strategies to reach students with varied learning styles, and features IWES-generated media throughout.
CrAFT is Comprehensive
The CrAFT curriculum intentionally provides diverse and comprehensive information young people need to keep themselves safe, happy, and healthy as they mature. Lessons on puberty, sexuality, and anatomy and physiology, provides students with medically accurate definitions of key concepts related to puberty and anatomy and an understanding of the physical, social, cognitive, and emotional changes they encounter as they mature, while lessons on STIs, pregnancy, and prevention afford students the knowledge and skills they require to navigate sexual health safely. Lastly, a focus on interpersonal relationships, communication, & decision making enable students to identify what they want and deserve in healthy relationships and an opportunity to apply healthy communication skills towards that end.
CrAFT is Human Rights Focused and Gender Transformative
This curriculum is rooted in a human rights framework and integrates an understanding of power and societal oppression into all lessons. This helps students understand the importance of fairness, and the connection between fairness and human rights, and encourages students human rights to their own lives. Modules on understanding gender help students distinguish between biological and socially-constructed characteristics assigned to people of different genders, and enables students to reflect on their own relationship to gender, sex, and sexuality.
CrAFT includes Mental Health Components
New Orleans youth have rates of depression, lifetime PTSD and trauma-inducing events higher than the national average. The most unique component of CrAFT is the inclusion of four mental health and emotional wellness modules. Research has shown that high stress levels contribute to sexual risk taking, thus inclusion of these modules can assist in providing strategies for young people to cope with stress and increase their ability to make smart decisions.