Welcome to Our Whole Lives (OWL)!
Outline
What is OWL about?
How could this help my adolescent?
Who will be teaching OWL?
Program Details & Schedule
Sliding Scale Pricing
Interested? Please fill out the form.
What is OWL?
Our Whole Lives is a comprehensive sexuality education curriculum that helps participants make informed and responsible decisions about their sexual health and behavior. It equips participants with accurate, age-appropriate information in six subject areas: human development, relationships, personal skills, sexual behavior, sexual health, and society and culture. Grounded in a holistic view of sexuality, comprehensive sexuality education provides not only facts about anatomy and human development, but also an experience that helps participants to clarify their values, build interpersonal skills, and understand the spiritual, emotional, social, and political aspects of sexuality.
Why OWL, Why this Program?
This curriculum is designed to help young adolescents:
Affirm and respect themselves as sexual persons (including their bodies, sexual orientation, feelings, etc.) and respect the sexuality of others.
Increase comfort and skills for discussing and negotiating sexuality issues with peers, romantic partners, and people of other generations.
Explore, develop, and articulate values, attitudes, and feelings about their own sexuality and the sexuality of others.
Identify and live according to their values
Increase motivation and skills for developing a just sexual morality that rejects double standards, stereotypes, biases, exploitation, dishonesty and harassment.
Acquire knowledge and skills for developing and maintaining romantic or sexual relationships that are consensual, mutually pleasurable, non exploitative, safe and based on respect, mutual expectations and caring.
Increase knowledge and skills for avoiding unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Express and enjoy sexuality in healthy and responsible ways at each stage of their development.
Assess the impact of messages from family, culture, religion, media, and society on sexual thoughts, feelings, values and behaviors.
OWL Assumptions, Values, Rules, and More
Who are the Facilitators?
Sarah Koch
(She|Her) is the Founder and Lead Educator at RAD, a sexual wellbeing business for people of all ages that focuses on intimacy, sexuality, and relationships. Sarah is a trained Sex Educator, Embodied Intimacy and Relationship Coach, Somatic Guide, and Yoga Teacher. She is a curious nerd of all things personal growth, dancing wild and free, tree-hugging nature-loving, and woo woo mystical energies of the universe. She resides in Peterborough, NH with her two lovely children, her dog Fern, and her chosen community.
Don MacIntosh
(He|Him) is a retired educator (43 years) with a Masters in Education/Special Education. He taught in a wide range of positions: early childhood, elementary and middle school special education, along with “regular” 2nd, 4th and 5th grade. After “Mr. Mac” received his certification in Internet wiring and technology integration he worked as computer specialist teacher, and then technology director. As a semi-professional photographer, Don covers numerous automotive events each year, and also loves getting shots of bobcat, fox, heron, fawn, moose and various water fowl near his home in Mason, NH where he lives with his wife/muse Marina and their dog Frankie.
Todd Herrmann
(He|Him) is a business professor at Simmons University in Boston and Franklin Pierce in Rindge. Prior to teaching, Todd worked in healthcare management for over 20 years. In his spare time, he’s likely working in his garden in Peterborough, singing with one of the many choruses in the Monadnock region, or spending time with his husband Steve and their two grown children (who went through the OWL program as teens) and their two Labrador Retriever mix rescue dogs.
The backgrounds of all facilitators have been checked through Church Mutual Insurance Company.
Program Details
The OWL Curriculum for 7th & 8th graders consists of 25 90-minute lessons.
Parent Orientation
Wednesday, September 18th 6 - 8 pm
Weekly Classes
Wednesdays starting September 25th 6 - 7:30pm through April 15, 2025 (or into early May as needed with snow days)
Location
Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church (PUUC)
25 Main St, Peterborough, NH
Lower level Education Room
This program is held around dinner time and we have a potential solution. PUUC offers a Community Supper every Wednesday beginning at 5:30 pm and you and your family are welcome to attend. This is completely optional.
Program Cost
PUUC is subsidizing this program to make it accessible to all. No family will be turned away due to inability to pay; please contact the facilitator if none of the suggested donation levels below meets your needs. We suggest these sliding-scale donations for this program.
Please contribute at the level that feels right for you and your current situation:
Lowest income - $40
Median income - $100
Highest income - $150
The actual cost of running the program is $300 per child + volunteer time. We welcome additional donations to pay-it-forward and help us offset the cost of books, supplies, and other overhead expenses. Donations will also make future OWL programs possible for other cohorts and age groups.
Interested?
Completing the form means that the facilitators will reach out to you with more details over the summer. There is no obligation or payment required when you complete the interest form.
OWL Reviews
What are people saying about OWL? In addition to articles being written in major newspapers throughout the country, pastors, facilitators, students and parents have expressed gratitude for Our Whole Lives. Here are just a few quotes:
“Sexuality is too important a subject for youth to be without a trustworthy source of accurate, reliable information. To be involved with these young people in one of the most important stages of their lives is an honor which is not taken lightly.”
(Our Whole Lives facilitator and parent)
“The information presented in the Our Whole Lives programs is straight, honest talk about respect for one’s self, friends and community. Our Whole Lives provides answers to basic questions and offers many opportunities to digest and reflect on what it means to be a healthy teen. How wonderful that, as a caring church community, we can offer so much to our children in a safe learning environment.”
(Our Whole Lives parent, nurse practitioner)
“Don’t ever stop offering Our Whole Lives at church. I took it when I was in high school and I think it saved my life. Every kid should see themselves the way Our Whole Lives sees them.”
(College student)
“One parent gave me a hug and thanked me for introducing Our Whole Lives into the church. Another was near tears as she told me how excited she was that we would be offering the Our Whole Lives program, how impressed she was by it, how important it was to be doing this, and so pleased that her children would be in the program. Another just said, ‘Look, you can tell how moved I am, I am trembling.'”
(Pastor)
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. The training I received this weekend was the best training I’ve ever received. I arrived very nervous—what am I doing here? Now I’m leaving knowing that the youth from my church will be receiving excellent information—and I can do this!”
(Our Whole Lives Facilitator)
