Our Whole Lives (OWL)

In 2023, First Parish Stoughton is pleased to partner with First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church in Canton to provide OWL for youth grades 7-9 or equivalent. 

What is OWL?

Our Whole Lives (OWL) is a secular, comprehensive sexuality education program that helps youth grades 7-9 or equivalent make informed and responsible decisions about their relationships, sexual health and behavior with an accurate, developmentally appropriate curriculum. 

The program is comprised of 25 different workshops and has been developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and United Church of Christ (UCC). Despite its ties to religious institutions, the content is intended to be secular and accessible to all while being rooted in the liberal values of the UU and UCC traditions. 

Read more about the topics covered by the workshops here: https://www.uua.org/re/owl/297213.shtml

What is your schedule?

Our program will run from January-June 2024 on Sunday afternoons. All workshops will start at 2PM and be held at the Canton church. On weekends with a Monday Holiday and the first Sundays of school vacations, we have not scheduled workshops and instead have scheduled longer “mini-retreats” in the week immediately following with a longer run time to fit in extra content. 

Importantly, we encourage all youth to attend every session. But we understand that life happens, so we don’t have a strict attendance policy. That being said, if you find that the schedule mostly doesn’t work for your family, we would be happy to connect you with another organization running OWL whose schedule might fit a little better.

Our detailed schedule can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1glNWOtAB26KIEwNDzsjuwjLSn5peoEBX/view?usp=drive_link 

How do I sign up?

The first step to sign up is to fill out Registration form, which can be found here: https://forms.gle/YatnQgTEFoHxAMdi9

Then, attend our mandatory parent/guardian orientation on January 7^th. This is an adults-only workshop where you can get a glimpse into how the workshops are run, get greater exposure to program materials, and get any questions answered. 

We are running the program on a donation basis to help cover costs so we can continue offering programs like this. The recommended donation ($225-$250) helps us pay for costs related to materials, facilitator training, snacks for the youth, guest speakers, and the utility bill for our time in the church. However, any bit helps and please don’t let this be a barrier to participation! If your family can contribute less, it will be gratefully received; and if your family is in a position to give a little more, that would help us break even that much quicker and reinvest in our programming. 

What if I have questions about the program?

Please reach out to kidsandyouth@firstparishstoughton.org with any questions about this or other FPUC programs.