Well, more reflecting than dreaming....As someone whose work is largely in schools, summer has a slower pace that opens up time and space for reflection. Although we do summer programming, I'm with groups less during the summer and a sizeable chunk of my time, whether it has to be or not, is focused on ensuring that reporting is finished, summarizing the year, planning for upcoming work, celebrating successes and hard work, and reflecting on what we should focus on moving forward. 

Where I'm at with that last piece is really thinking more about equity. What's equity, you say? Well, when we're talking about health equity it means that the highest level of health is attainable for all people. Everyone deserves to have equal access to opportunities that lead to and support health, but that is not the reality. Health disparities are often rooted in social determinants of health such as sexual orientation, ethnicity, geographic location, or socioeconomic status. And there are intersections between those aspects of one's identity that can complicate and amplify things! If you want some more info about health equity, start with Healthy People's page and the Minnesota Department of Health's Health Equity page.  

Sexual health is an area where there are some significant health disparities. For example; some racial/ethnic groups experience higher rates of sexually transmitted infections and adolescents who identify as lesbian or bisexual are more likely to become pregnant than straight peers. Sexuality education can be an important tool for chipping away at health disparities when it is fact-based, comprehensive, and prevention focused, while rooted in a positive, healthy definition of sexuality. There are benefits of sexuality education that far beyond whether or not someone does or does not experience an unplanned pregnancy that can dramatically shift the course of someone's life. For those of us who care deeply about ensuring that sexuality education is designed and implemented to best meet the needs of every student, we have responsibility to be constantly examining and questioning social determinants of health and working to address them in our work. 

And that's what I'm going to do. I've had a couple of experiences in June that were focused on equity, and I'm going to share about them in future posts.