OYSHP works collectively to ensure that all people have the information and skills to be sexually healthy; recognizing that sexual health impacts the overall health and safety of communities throughout Oregon. This includes supporting individuals, families, communities and schools to:
- Make healthy decisions and take action to ensure healthy sexuality.
- Promote healthy sexuality education that is supportive, sustainable, culturally responsive, and focused on lived experience; develop resources and advocate for policy.
- Ensure youth are educated, empowered, and skilled in making healthy decisions about their current and future sexual health, safety, and well-being.
- Engage communities in fostering supportive environments to influence healthy sexuality policy, education, and programming.
Purpose and Core Values
OYSHP collaboratively works toward the vision of healthy youth, families, and communities throughout Oregon, through the promotion of shared, just, equitable, and holistic sexual health and well-being.
We think about these concepts in terms of what they mean: for youth, families, and communities; in schools and healthcare settings; and for legislation and policy work. With this in mind, we come to the following ideas about these concepts for OYSHP.
- Shared: Sexual health and well-being is interpersonal, collaborative, communal, and involves both individual & collective responsibility to work towards the future well-being of individuals and communities throughout Oregon. This is shared work. We all play a role.
- Just: Sexual health and well-being for all people must be informed by the people that our efforts serve, by lived experience, and by a historical lens to understand oppression and the ways that it intersects with education and health promotion past and present. Just means education, materials and services provided are ethical, respectful, mutual, consent-based and not fear or shame-based. These efforts must be inclusive, representative, culturally responsive/informed, and accurate (evidence-based and medically accurate).
- Equitable: Sexual health and well-being is equitable when services, education, and materials meet the needs of the people accessing them, as defined by these populations. These services are accessible, usable, and meet individuals, families, and communities where they are. To truly be equitable, we must also work to dismantle sites and actions of systemic oppression in order to center bodily autonomy, literacy, choice, voice, and agency of all people, and especially youth.
- Holistic: Sexual health and well-being that meets the learning needs of all people, especially youth, and affirms all youth to lead the lives they want to lead. This includes not solely focusing on reducing risks, but promoting healthy, whole, humans with agency, autonomy, and skills across all components of life. Holistic sexual health and well-being inclusively affirms who youth are and what they want.
History
2005
Governor’s Office identifies need for coordinated statewide approach to youth sexual health in Oregon and requests that a multi-agency ad-hoc committee of state agency representatives, and private partners be formed. Committee is initially named the Teen Pregnancy Prevention/Sexual Health Partnership (TPP/SHP).
2006-2008
TPP/SHP recognizes the opportunity to develop an evidence-based coordinated approach to youth sexual health, and to resolve philosophical differences among partners. We recommended that a permanent statewide partnership be formed to create a new strategic plan, provide leadership for its implementation, and develop ongoing policy recommendations.
2009
TPP/SHP works with youth and other stakeholders around Oregon to publish the Oregon Youth Sexual Health (YSH) Plan, a strategic action plan to address youth sexual health in a holistic manner. TPP/SHP becomes the Oregon Youth Sexual Health Partnership (OYSHP) to more accurately reflect this holistic approach and the context of healthy sexuality for young people.
2015
The YSH 5-Year Update is published looking at the progress Oregon has made in promoting youth sexual health from 2008, just before the plan was released, through 2014; as well as improvements in youth sexual health policy, partnerships, programming and outcomes made across the state.
Present
OYSHP continues to convene stakeholders from around the state to support coordination around the eight objectives in the Oregon Youth Sexual Health Plan: Build State and Community Infrastructure, Develop Supporting Policy, Promote Youth Development and Opportunities, Provide Education and Skill Building for Youth and Families, Provide Services for Youth and Families, Collect and Monitor Data, and Assurances and Measured Effectiveness.
Since our development, OYSHP has broadened its focus to work towards an Oregon that is sexually healthy for all people.
Membership
OYSHP brings together community organizations and state/local government partners committed to promoting a sexually healthy Oregon for all people; with the goal of balanced membership between state, community, urban, and rural representation. Membership is assigned individually and/or organizationally.
OYSHP currently consists of a broad collaborative as well as several committees including: Governance, Education, Policy, Community Health and Outreach, and Data/Evaluation/Assessment/Research (D.E.A.R.). You can learn more about each of these committees by visiting the OYSHP focus area pages of this website.
Learn more about OYSHP membership, expectations, and access a copy of the Membership Application HERE.
OYSHP members include (currently and historically) the following organizations:
- Deschutes County Health Services
- Girls Inc.
- Insights Teen Parent Services
- Latino Network
- Multnomah County Health Department
- Native American Youth and Family Center
- Oregon Citizens for Safe Schools
- Oregon Department of Education
- Oregon Department of Human Services
- Oregon Health and Sciences University
- Oregon Health Authority
- Oregon School Based Health Alliance
- Oregon Sexual Assault Task Force
- Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon
- Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette
- Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon
- Portland Public Schools
- Portland State University
- Prevent Child Abuse Oregon
- Roads to Family
Oregon Youth Sexual Health Partnership (OYSHP) 