Reimagining the State of Adolescent Sexual Health in Colorado
Prepared by Consulting Within Your Context
and Trailhead Institute
Striving for Systemic Transformation
For over a decade, the State of Adolescent Sexual Health (SASH) report has provided a summary of up-to-date statistics on the sexual health of young people and a brief snapshot of how Colorado’s progress compares to national trends over time. While this quantitative data can inform policies and programs that support the health and well-being of Colorado youth, it is also limited in its expression and depth, and fails to capture a nuanced, intersectional understanding of what young people experience and need from their sexual health education.
Evolving from what has been, the 2023 SASH report exclusively focuses on the systems that govern and influence the experiences that young people have with sexual health, recognizing that sexual health outcomes and personal development improve when the systems responsible for delivering care, access, and education reflect the humanity and diversity of young people.
This reimagining of the SASH centers the voices of those most impacted by oppressive systems and leans into the leadership of young people to lay the groundwork for evolving the delivery of sexual health education in Colorado. Developed using an anti-oppressive process that engaged community members with lived experience, this report identifies the roles that partners within the education system, governmental agencies, community-based organizations, funding and philanthropic entities and those working with data play in the youth sexual health field and presents an accountable path forward for transforming young people’s experiences with sexual health through clear, anti-oppressive action.
Changing Format
For the first time in the creation of this report, the SASH has been developed in a website format to hold space for greater depth of learning and growing the provision of resources as the field advances sexual health education in Colorado. This is a tool to explore, engage in with curiosity, and return to, as it too will continue to evolve.
Building from Principles
to Action
This report is organized through four primary sections — Learn, Core Boundaries, Liberating Practices, and Anti-Oppressive Recommendations. Defined and discussed in further depth throughout this website, the core boundaries and liberating practices present opportunities for learning and reflection, moving from foundational principles for comprehensive sex education into liberating approaches for engagement that support partners working across the field of youth sexual health education in taking action on anti-oppressive recommendations to improve youth sexual health in Colorado.
Moving Forward, Together
The SASH is a tool for all partners working in youth sexual health to join Trailhead Institute in the hard and necessary work to shift the culture of comprehensive sex education and achieve systemic change within Colorado’s youth sexual health field. This report is an invitation to reflect, hold conversation, deepen relationships, find alignment across initiatives and imagine new possibilities, together.