Making It Work!

This section is designed to help you find ways to apply the content of this module to your everyday work.

1. Talking with Clients: An Example. Review this example of how addressing sexuality during services can benefit a client.
2. Probing: Asking Specific Questions. Examples of the questions to ask when discussing sexuality with all clients, prenatal and postpartum clients, clients seeking contraception, and clients who present with STIs.
3. Tips and Educational Activities. Using the information presented in the “Making It Work” pages throughout this minicourse, develop staff orientations, trainings, and client-education materials.
4. Begin to incorporate a sexual and reproductive health approach to service delivery by:
• Including questions about sexual functioning during client visits
• Including questions about sexual orientation, current level of sexual activity, level of satisfaction with sex life, and concerns
• Providing pamphlets about sexuality relevant to age and sex
• Referring to the specific conditions and medications that can cause sexual difficulties, when appropriate
• Repeating inquiries about sexual concerns at more than one visit to facilitate discussion of sexual matters
• Paying attention to the client’s nonverbal cues of embarrassment, tension, or withdrawal during discussion
• Presenting information and asking questions in a relaxed, nonjudgmental manner

Conclusions

Sexuality influences every aspect of our lives. Though it is an area that many people would like to discuss openly, in almost every culture it is treated as a topic too private to discuss. However, the sources of this reluctance to talk about sexuality may go beyond cultural taboos and include lack of communication skills, lack of local resources for sex-related problems, and difficulties of addressing the underlying factors (e.g., inequalities, abuses, and power dynamics between partners). These factors are further influenced by age, race, class, and gender, which have a profound impact on the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services.

After reviewing this section, you will have completed the Talking with Clients about Sexuality module of this minicourse. If you have not already done so, you may now review the case studies for this module.

If you have completed the modules sequentially, you will now have completed all the content in this minicourse and may want to go on to review EngenderHealth’s minicourse on Sexually Transmitted Infections. If not, you may wish to return to the course home page to begin or review a different module.

 

© 2007 EngenderHealth