Our Whole Lives: Sexuality for Older Adults
Our Whole Lives: Sexuality Education for Older Adults (published in 2019) is the only existing curriculum of its kind. This program is comprehensive and progressive, addressing sexuality with candor, sensitivity, and respect for older adults’ wisdom and life experience.
Honest, accurate information about sexuality changes lives. It dismantles stereotypes and assumptions, builds self-acceptance and self-esteem, fosters healthy relationships, improves decision making, and has the potential to save lives. For these reasons and more, we are proud to offer Our Whole Lives (OWL), a comprehensive, lifespan sexuality education curricula for use in both secular settings and faith communities.
Our Whole Lives was innovative from its start in 2000. Co-published by the UUA and the United Church of Christ (UCC), OWL was quickly recognized as a creative, effective, comprehensive curriculum appropriate for diverse settings.
Today, OWL covers the lifespan, with editions for grades K–1, 4-6, 7–9, 10–12, ages 18–35, ages 36–49, and ages 50+. More than 11,000 facilitators have been trained in its use.
OWL is used in UCC and UU congregations, by other faith traditions, charter schools, public and private schools, colleges and universities, juvenile and adult correctional facilities, youth-serving organizations, health organizations and hospitals, and older adult programming.
Our UUA Our Whole Lives Program Manager, Melanie Davis, won the award for 2022 Sexuality Educator of the Year from the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists.
Melanie Davis, PhD, CSC, CSE
OWL Program Manager