Pre-conference Workshops

• STI Clinical Update
• Full Day - M1 - Managing Challenging Dialogues about Diversity
• Full Day - M2 - Solution-Oriented Practice
• Morning - M3 - Effective Sexuality Education for Youth– What Works?
• Morning - M4 - Women's Anatomy of Arousal - Secret Maps to Buried Pleasure
• Afternoon - M5 - Bringing Sexy Back/ Mash It Up: An Urban Guide to Healthy Relationships
• Afternoon - M6 - Integrating Sexuality and Disability: Tools for Professionals

Full Day Pre-conference Workshops, Monday June 21st

Join us for leading edge updates on the treatment and management of sexually transmitted infections. Now in its 8th year at the Guelph Sexuality Conference, the STI Clinical Update provides an opportunity to hear from professionals in the field and network with peers in the field of clinical care and research in the promotional and treatment of STI’s.

Designed for nurses and physicians working in:
Family/general practice – health unit clinics – walk-in clinics – sexual assault centres – university and college health services – emergency rooms

The STI Clinical Update workshops are supported by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care,
and in part by the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Download STI Clinical Update Flyer and Registration Form

FULL Day Pre-conference Workshops, Monday June 21st

Facilitators' and participants' of discussions around issues of diversity and difference are often faced with moments that challenge their attempts to create and sustain the inclusiveness of such environments. Often participants are challenged to consider how their individual experiences, values and perspectives within an oppressive societal context have influenced how they construct knowledge in ways that may be potentially marginalizing for others. This workshop will be an interactive and experiential process where participants will review principles and frameworks for creating common understandings and accountabilities anti-oppression, equity, power, privilege, intersectionality and cultural competence to help improve and enhance the inclusiveness and safety of dynamic dialogue across a diversity of perspectives. The goal will be to create and sustain environments in which participants from a range of groups can feel safe, supported, and encouraged to considerately explore their views and concerns from multiple perspectives and varied experiences.

Douglas Stewart, Consultant in diversity, equity & human rights, Competence Consultants & Associates, Toronto

This workshop is for counselors, teachers, nurses, clergy and front line sexual health professionals. It is designed to enhance practitioners’ ability to have conversations that facilitate solution building and to and increase clients’ sense of self-efficacy. In this workshop we will discuss the fundamentals of solution-oriented approaches to counseling and demonstrate how to help individuals begin their own change process by noticing exceptions (solutions) rather than focusing on problems. Participants will have an opportunity to apply the theory to some of the typical issues they encounter in their work with individuals and groups, such as relationship struggles, school problems, and sexual concerns. There will be an opportunity to practice the solution-oriented model.

Sharon Mayne Devine, MSc., RSW, RMFT, AMFT Clinical Member, and Approved Supervisor of AAMFT, and Special Graduate Faculty in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph. She has taught the solution oriented approach to graduate students in the Couple and Family Therapy Program. University of Guelph, Ontario

Half Day Pre-conference Workshops, Monday June 21st

This interactive workshop is designed for anyone beginning to teach or facilitate sexual health programming for youth from 12 – 19. Participants will engage in self-reflection and group discussion regarding the assets for and barriers to becoming a good sex educator. The latest research on adolescent sexuality will be presented. Additionally, effective tools for teaching youth about sexual health will be presented and participants will have an opportunity to practise their use. Participants will leave with access to classroom modules for grades 7 - 12, including support print materials developed by the Toronto Public Health

Lyba Spring, BA, Sexual Health Promotor, Toronto Public Health, Ontario

Beginning with a visual journey through art and anatomy, we explore links between cultural ideas about women’s sexuality, female anatomy, and our current “genital amnesia.” Next, a very useful framework for understanding masculine and feminine sexuality is presented. We then explore unique new anatomical diagrams to discover the “Female Erectile Network,” going far beyond the clitoris and the g-spot to fully understand the elegant, integral, multi-purpose female sexual/reproductive system.

Sheri Winston, CNM, BSN, RN, LMT, Founder & Executive Director, The Centre for the Intimate Arts, New York

Mash It Up: Race/ethnicity, class, gender, power, social structure and cultural variables all impact the sexual health choices of Black Toronto youth residing in urban working class areas. So what is missing from the current sexual health curriculum that is continuously missing the mark with this vulnerable population? The proposed combined use of Urban Arts Therapy and culturally relevant sexual health education, is an effective methodology to training and reaching youth from hard to reach populations.

Rose-Ann Bailey, BFA, BEd., M.Ed.(c), TAIBU Community Health Centre, and Arlene Roze Jardine, BA, MES(c), Creative Youth Resource Education Studio, Toronto

Sexuality is an essential part of life for all human beings. For persons with physical disabilities, self-perception as well as ability impacts and restricts sexual expression. It’s important to understand that the experience of disability is experienced differently between individuals who are born with disabilities and those who acquire disabilities. However, even within this frame of reference, the stigma of disability is a unique experience. This workshop covers the diverse challenges that people with disabilities face in regard to developing healthy self-perceptions and sexual expression and considers how this influences their level of vulnerability to abusive encounters. This workshop will be of interest to counseling professionals and others who work with persons with disabilities or who want to increase their awareness of the disability experience. Therapeutic techniques and tools to facilitate the positive integration and adjustment to living with a physical disability will be presented

Susan Wheeler, BSW, Counselor, Author, Wheeler Consulting, Fergus