Contemporary youth health issues

This unit is the third of four health discipline units in this course. This unit develops and enhances your specific health-related knowledge, skills, pedagogies and capabilities. Focusing on creating safe and supportive environments, the unit explores contemporary youth health issues, popular culture, media, and digital health literacy. It provides a strong foundation for teaching health education in various contexts and settings. As a discipline unit its central feature is its focus on and exploration of contemporary priority youth health issues of importance in society, young people, and schooling, for example, the role of the media and digital media health literacy; sex, genders, sexualities and sexual health; and respectful relationships and consent education. To sensitively address these issues the unit takes a strengths-based approach that is strongly research and theory driven, and inclusive of contemporary approaches and practices needed for educating young people in today’s complex and ever-changing society.