Quinte area public heath officials continue to promote “up-to-date messaging on sexual health” despite changes in the school curriculum by the Ontario government.
Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government re-introduced the curriculum from 1998 into the schools, rather than the one from 2015, which had been used.
In an interview following the Hastings Prince Edward Board of Heath on Wednesday, Sexual Health program manager Stephanie McFaul told Quinte News public health is working with the school board on doing a “situation assessment” to better identify how to help teachers in this work.
McFaul commented on the old curriculum now being used.
She thinks teachers need to teach what are “the needs of their population.”
McFaul says public health doesn’t have to stick to the old curriculum. “Through our public health services and through some of the promotion that we do, we continue to provide prevention and support of messaging around all aspects of healthy prevention” of sexually transmitted diseases.
She added that they are still trying to meet the needs of students and she is “hoping there will be a curriculum that will better meet those needs in the future.”
