Sex Ed Conference Virgin

by Jennifer Hill, The College of New Jersey

CFLE’s National Sex Ed Conference was the most useful, engaging, and interesting professional sex ed conference I have ever attended.

Okay, full disclosure: it’s the first sex ed conference I have ever attended.  Unlike many the attendees there, I am new to the sex ed professional world.  Of course, I’ve been volunteering with various Planned Parenthood’s for years, and I want to make sex ed my career, but I haven’t figured out how to make that happen yet.  Which is why, when I read about 300 sex ed professionals from around the country (and world!) all coming together in the same place for three days, you can be sure it took me less than 3 minutes to sign up.  I thought about all the amazing networking opportunities, and I was absolutely right.

The thing I love about sex ed professionals is that everyone loves what they are doing, everyone loves telling you about how much they love what they are doing, and everyone wants you to be a sex ed professional and love it too.  As far as networking goes, CFLE’s attendees were a pretty fantastic bunch.  I was impressed by the breadth of topics covered at the workshops and how engaging the speakers were, to be sure.  However, I was most impressed by the conference attendees and how willing they were to offer advice, share knowledge, and trade e-mail addresses.  Thanks to everyone I spoke to, and to all the wonderful presenters.  You can be sure I’ll be back next year!