Hello from your conference co-chairs!  We are excited to share with you the conference theme for 2018, Bridging the Divide: Shedding Light on the Taboos and Pleasures of Sexuality. While it hasn’t been too long since the last conference, we’ve been hard at work reviewing evaluations and implementing your feedback into the Denver programming.

Congratulations to our 2017 AASECT Award and Scholarship Recipients!  The following recipients were presented with their awards at the 2017 AASECT Conference in Las Vegas on June 17. 2017. Please join us in congratulating them for their contributions to the field of sexual health!  Distinguished Service to AASECT Award: Jo Marie Kessler, MS, NP, CSE, DST          

We are just home from the 2017 AASECT Summer Institute and we are happy to report back that it was a huge success! We started off on Day 1 with a (non-AASECT, yet well-known) national speaker, Robert Taibbi who covered the fundamentals of supervision.  We followed with our process group, led by Gretchen Fincke and Sally Valentine. Moving into Friday we began with Peggy Kleinplatz, talking of Transformational Supervision, who blazed in to change the whole tone and tenor...we were on a fast roll from there that carried us through Sunday!

Sara Nasserzadeh, PhD DipPST, author of The Wheel of Context for Sexuality Education was created as a practical framework to ensure that educators, advocates, and researchers in the field of sexuality education maintain a holistic perspective on a selected number of key contextual factors that may influence, hinder or catalyze our work. The Wheel of Context may also help provide a greater appreciation for the communities we serve and ultimately lead to more desirable outcomes for our programs or projects.

The last year has been an exciting one for PR, Media and Advocacy (PRMA). One highlight was releasing our position statement regarding sex addiction and getting so much support within AASECT as well as from the media. We received considerable coverage from over 20 major publications, including USA TODAY, New York Magazine, SELF Magazine and Esquire Magazine.

Stephanie Buehler, PdD CST - Counseling Couples Before, During and After Pregnancy. 

LGBTQ Clients in Therapy: Clinical Issues and Treatment Strategies - All the answers clinicians need to work effectively with LGBTQ clients. A therapist who treats LGBTQ clients often must be more than “gay friendly.” Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender clients have specific needs that require their own knowledge base. This book offers up-to-date information for clinicians treating LGBTQ clients, including new chapters on transgender, sexually fluid, and gender nonconforming clients.

Jane Fleishman, PhD, CSE, will be presenting on September 14, 2017, from 9 am-4 pm, in an all-day conference on sexual health for older adults, sponsored by SHINE and held at Linda Manor in Leeds, MA.  Dr. Ashley Mader is convening the conference and will feature Joan Ditzion, one of the founders of Our Bodies, Our Selves.  Click here for more information: https://shinedialogue.org/.

Stella Resnick, PhD, CST, first book,The Pleasure Zone: Why We Resist Good Feelings, published exactly 20 years ago is still going strong after all these years and now is about to be released in Russian. It has been published in Chinese, Hebrew, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and the UK and is still available as an ebook and an audiobook.

Our topics and speakers for this year are again going to be wonderful so please check out the link to find more information!  We are happy to host Tammy Nelson on Sept 12, Linda Tumbarello on Jan 9, and Samantha Manewitz on May 8. All of the events will be held at the same time and place as last year:  11 am -- 1:30 pm at the Florence Community Center.