Family Life Education: A Handbook for Adults Working with Youth from a Christian Perspective – or “CFLE Handbook” for short – is designed to assist adults in providing correct life-skills information to youth.
The CFLE Handbook seeks to encourage open discussion about sexuality, reproductive health, and HIV in the context of faith communities. It provides accurate public health information on sensitive issues in the context of faith values. The material is not meant to promote religion.
The tool provides factual information related to topics and typical questions and answers that will be helpful to youth, along with Bible verses as a context to frame discussions in a Christian context. Additional verses from the Bible for CFLE topics are listed. These may expand participants’ knowledge relating to the decisions young people make as they grow. The tool uses fun and simple illustrations to enhance learning.
A connection to religion is a protective factor for healthy youth behaviours. While many youths attend churches, faith leaders often do not address issues related to sexuality. Church groups have taken a leadership role in helping HIV orphans, but few have worked as vigorously with youth regarding the prevention of HIV and pregnancy
The CFLE Handbook provides an introductory resource tool for adults working in a faith context. It includes 20 sections, grouped into five topic areas:
- Part I. Communicating with Young People
- Part II. Growing and Changing
- Part III. Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV
- Part IV. Safety and Your Future
- Part V. Family Life
The CFLE Handbook is adapted from a larger publication produced in 2006, Family Life Education: Teaching Adults to Communicate with Youth from a Christian Perspective – or “CFLE Manual” for short. That 188-page manual includes six day-long workshops and an accompanying participant handbook. This CLFE Handbook contains the same material as the participant handbook used with that manual – grouped according to the first five workshops.
You can download this handbook for free here.
