C. S. E. – achtung°Liebe – AMSA-Austria

Name of the activity: C. S. E. – achtung°Liebe

Country/NMO: AMSA Austria

Program: Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

Contact information: contact [email protected] to get in touch with the Activity Coordinator

Type of the activity: Continuous Activity.

Category: Capacity Building

Focus area: Comprehensive Sexuality Education

Sustainable Development Goals addressed: GOAL 4: QUALITY EDUCATION

General description:

Students from different healthcare-related faculties and educational faculties undergo a basis-training (30 hours) in order to deliver CSE workshops in primary and middle schools. The activity comprehends the formation of students, which is ongoing and regularly updated, according to standards of the International CSE guideline of the WHO. Focus areas are based on the interests of pupils in the school visits, such data is collected through quality control protocols after each school visit.

Problem statement:

Our problem is an uneducated population about SRHR. There are few services and accesses in Austria and the young generations need to be given tools to understand and use the few resources in our country properly. CSE got banned in 2019 and reintroduced shortly after, due to conservative student associations spreading non-scientific knowledge about SRHR. The situation is repeating itself since ’22, with student associations actively advocating against Parental health and access to safe abortion.

Target groups:

Medical students, Healthcare Students, Other Students, Children, Youth

Beneficiaries:

General population, Medical students, Healthcare Students, Other Students, Doctors, Children, Youth, Women, LGBTQIA+ community

Objectives:

We want to strengthen our presence in schools in all 7 LC. For the next semester, each LC is given the possibility to newly educate around 25% of their previous occupation, based on 2022 information. This will increase our presence in schools by a third of what the LC usually delivers in a year. Contracts with entire districts, to ensure and guarantee our presence in schools, were stipulated for spring 2023.
We also use our toolkits for school-workshop evaluation, to see which topics are of higher interest to the youth and plan our education and expertise seminars accordingly. For 22-23 we put focus on queer-based methods and ASA in CSE, since these two topics are both of political relevance and mirror the interest of our young audience as well.

Indicators of Success:

Success is assessed by quality control forms at the end of each semester; which will show if we achieved the desired increased presence or not. We are also in touch with youth centers in the districts where our contracts are held in order to gather information about CSE-related topics among the children and to increase our presence also in non-scholastic education centers.
We connect youth with other organizations that have further expertise on other topics, and from those, we get feedback, if the youth was directed there by us. Furthermore, our impact and presence are also monitored through our social media page, for children and youth, where we periodically interact through quizzes and questions, whilst tracking the interest areas and foci of our audience. Results are presented twice per year, during our CSE national assembly and used for the working plan for the following year.

Methodology:

New CSE educators are educated twice a year (ca. 60 new CSEducators per year) with a basic education block of 30 hours. School visits are taking place throughout all school months. All CSE educators are coordinated by their local coordinators (specific for CSE), which are respectively coordinated by the national CSE board, which consists of two national coordinators, financial officer, project officer, Public relation officer, and web content manager. The national CSE board is coordinated by the NORA, which overviews and manages the different focus areas for CSE development both educators and workshop topics. The national board has a database of organizations we have been working with at local, national and international level. In order for an association to be on that list, they can be WHO-partnered, NMO-approved, or have signed an MOU with local officers. Periodical “emotional jour fixes” happen at the national level to assess and ensure the mental health and wellbeing of SCORAngels.

Plans for evaluation:

Comparing the quality control reports of the past years and seeing if the topics adresses in the school visits are the same that we focus on in educating our CSEducators, trying to keep our formation in line with what youth needs and what society takes away. Assessments are made by comparing data from years 2018,2019,2021,2022 and follow-up 2023.
Graphics showing the different focus areas and the change in interest rate can be provided, as well as insights in methodology and performance-reports on local and national lavel for school visits per semester.
The graphs will show whether ths year’s activity has been based upon the interest topics of the previous year, and if the overall satisfaction of the recieving public stays impeccably satisfied and unvaried (9.8/10). Social media presence and response onto out-of-school questions, will also indicate where curiosity lies and will help us shape our education further, to meet the needs of our audience.

External collaborations:

ProChoice Austria (NGO, knowledge resources on access to safe abortion, no monetary retribution involved either way)
AIDSHilfe (NGO, knowledge resources on HIV, AIDS and other STIs, provides free condoms for school visits, no monetary retribution involved either way)
Österreichische Gesellschaft für Familienplanung (Austrian IPPF, NGO, yearly collaboration with professional Sex Educators to ensure quality education within our activity)
Stadt Wien + Graz (City districts, provide school visits)