In September 2020, the National Coalition for Sexual Health (NCSH) Annual Meeting included a panel on Trauma-Informed Care and Communications. Since the founding of the NCSH, CALCASA has been a member providing input on how promoting sexual health is a crucial component of sexual violence prevention efforts.

CALCASA Project Coordinator, Sarah Orton, helped organize the panel and moderated the discussion with Sevonna Brown, Co-Executive Director from Black Women’s Blueprint, Alex Damiano, Clinical Therapist for Sexual, Romantic, and Gender Minorities from the Sexual Assault Center in Nashville, and Kari Kesler, Sex-Educator and founder of the FLASH Curriculum in Seattle.

Highlights from the panel include:

• Black women are dying from childbirth at alarming rates – sexual abuse and maternal mortality are interconnected. Sexual and reproductive violence increase adverse maternal health outcomes.
• Clinicians can implement trauma-informed care by being a buffer against further traumatization, distributers (not gatekeepers) of information, act as scene partners in playing out new endings to old trauma-narratives, and by being accountable as enactors of harm.
• Safety, trust, transparency, peer support, collaboration, mutuality, empowerment, and cultural/historical/gender issues are key components to designing sex-ed curriculum that is trauma-informed.

Watch the full recording HERE and download the slides below.