Our CSE Program… at Home? What a New, Inclusive Model Could Look Like
More than 100 young adolescents living with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) now have access to comprehensive sexuality education through education centers. We’re proud of this milestone, which came after months of consultations, revisions, feedback, and training to make our CSE program better suited to the needs of autistic adolescents.
But… despite this progress, we have quickly realized that a center-based model alone isn’t enough.
What if there were another way?
An inclusive, high-impact delivery model
Delivering the program through centers and organizations that support autistic adolescents is already a big step, and this model has a lot of potential.
In practice, though, center-based education is limited by how many young people each center can take in, and that number has turned out to be much lower than we expected. One of our trained partner centers, for example, supports just five young people.
So, learning from this experience, we decided to explore other options, especially home-based education.
Home-based education can reach adolescents in areas with no access to a center, which makes it the most scalable and inclusive way to reach underserved communities. It could also serve adolescents who aren’t enrolled in formal institutions. Their parents or caregivers would take part in regular information and support sessions instead.
The home-based model has another major advantage when it comes to impact on autistic adolescents: it amplifies the role parents can play in supporting their teens, which everyone — from parents themselves, center educators, and advocates have told us is a big need and opportunity.
Alice Ratsiralovanirina, a doctor and mother of two autistic boys who we've worked with closely, put it this way: “Focusing on parents and families is very, very important. It's essential, really. Parents and families are with their autistic teen every single day, and learning can take a long time. It doesn’t happen in a day. For example, you can teach a neurotypical teenage girl how to use a sanitary pad in five minutes. You show her: you put it on like this, and you take it off like this. But for an autistic teenage girl, it might take longer.”
What does the home-based model involve?
This model aims to give parents of autistic children practical skills and caregiving strategies tailored to their needs. The goal is to reinforce CSE at home, strengthen family bonds, and help their children thrive.
Building on the results of our center-based program, we’re developing a toolkit that parents and guardians can use themselves at home to reach adolescents who don’t attend centers.
PJL trains regional branch leaders and volunteers from the Autisme Madagascar network. They, in turn, educate and support parents and caregivers through monthly meetings and home visits. This adds an extra layer of cascade training that the center-based approach doesn’t have.
We’ve also created a guide to help them run parent workshops effectively. It covers key points like how to make sessions with parents engaging and enjoyable, why CSE matters for autistic adolescents, and how parents can teach the different curriculum topics to their children.
Multi-level benefits and ripple effects
Our first workshop on the home-based model brought a pleasant surprise: unexpected impact!
At the regional level, access to trained specialists who can run education and support sessions for parents is still limited. In Fort-Dauphin, in southeastern Madagascar, workshop participants pointed out that these expert-led sessions had long been hard to organize because no specialists were available locally. But now, Autisme Madagascar volunteers and educators are better equipped to lead these workshops themselves.
Participants especially highlighted the session on the SPCR (Sensory Profile Checklist Revised), a tool for assessing sensory and cognitive profiles. This tool gave the workshop facilitators something concrete to use with parents and build credibility. They can now guide families toward suitable activities and adaptations without having to rely on an outside specialist.
Mampionona, mother of an 11-year-old autistic child and head of the Autisme Madagascar branch in Fort-Dauphin, told us: “This training really changed a lot for me, because I discovered so many things, and most of them were completely new to me. Of course there’s everything about comprehensive sexuality education, but I also discovered the SPCR test and the Ferland grid. These tools are so important for us as parents, to better understand our children’s emotions and sensory profiles. They’re valuable tools I didn’t know about before. Now that I’ve learned about them through this training, I’m going to do my best to put them into practice.”
Our goal was to help more autistic adolescents access CSE, and that’s exactly what the home-based model makes possible. But what excites us most is that its impact goes even further. Little by little, a stronger and more lasting support network is forming around parents and their teens.
“Thank goodness there are trainings like this one to help us build our skills, and I’m very grateful to the organizers. We won’t wait long. As soon as the new school year starts, we’ll begin sharing everything we’ve learned with parents.” — Mirah, special education teacher at a public primary school in Antsirabe, Vakinankaratra region
