Women & their Male Partners :: Safe Talk

A Women's Health Party

Safe Talks provide women in Southern Vermont with information and resources in the form of informal parties in order to support them as they move towards improved sexual health.

Modeled after Tupperware™ Parties, Safe Talk parties offer a fun and relaxed setting for sharing information and support about safer sex.  A hostess gathers her friends and neighbors together in her home, so that they are comfortable in a familiar setting. Surrounded by friends and guided by a trained facilitator, they have a chance to ask questions about their own bodies and sexual attitudes that they might not otherwise ask.

Equally important, the party allows women to enjoy time out, having laughs with other women.  By learning about sexuality in an atmosphere of fun, we encourage women to view their bodies as positive, powerful, and within their own control.  Women find that they often share the same questions and challenges, and then can support each other in building and holding on to healthy self-esteem.

Peers – women of ethnic background and social circumstances similar to the participants – are recruited, trained, and paid as facilitators for these parties.  The facilitators, being familiar with the unique issues of the group, are able to teach in a culturally sensitive manner.  They also gain opportunities for leadership and skills training for themselves.

The facilitator goes to the home of a hostess and leads interactive exercises that educate about women’s bodies and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, and that help to integrate safer behaviors into our lives.  The guests learn and laugh along with other women as well as receiving gifts and safer sex supplies.  Safe Talks are offered in both Spanish and English; food and child-care are also provided.  After the party, the participants will be able to:

• Recognize at least one prevention option that fits into their lives
• Increase their comfort in communication about sexuality issues
• Increase their knowledge in these areas: HIV transmission, STD’s and pregnancy prevention, HIV testing, and female sexual health, physiology and care
• Increase their self-confidence in protecting themselves (self-efficacy)
• More realistically assess their risk for HIV
• Feel increased support from peers in practicing safer sex (peer norms)

How do I get involved?

Join us in encouraging women to view their bodies and sexuality as positive, powerful, and within their own control.  Consider becoming a hostess, a guest or a trained facilitator.  By being a hostess or a guest, you -- along with other powerful women -- become leaders in the health promotion effort.

As a hostess, you will:

• Set a date
• Invite your guests (friends, neighbors, co-workers, relatives, or whomever else might want to come to a women’s health party)
• Receive a cash gift
• Relax and enjoy the party

The trained facilitator will come to the hostess’s home and do the rest. 

She will:

• Lead a series of games and interactive exercises that educate women about healthy sexuality issues, ranging from cervical cancer to female sexual arousal
• Bring food
• Organize child care if needed
• Provide gifts and prevention goodies

The guests will:

• Come to a party
• Laugh and learn with diverse women with similar concerns
• Receive food and gifts and free prevention goodies

If you would like to be a hostess, facilitator, or guest at a Safe Talk, or simply have questions, contact Andrea Kelly: email- str8up@sover.net or call- 802 254-4444.       

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