Getting Started With Our Whole Lives Training

I've been facilitating sessions for about eight years now, and honestly, the biggest hurdle isn't the curriculum itself. It's getting people to show up and actually engage. The OLLI (Our Whole Lives) program is a sexuality education curriculum for every age group, from children through older adults. It's developed jointly by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The training component specifically refers to the preparation that facilitators need before they can lead sessions. Here's the thing nobody tells you upfront: the training materials are publicly available but they're not always easy to find. You need to go through the UUA's website, and if your congregation isn't already affiliated, you'll need to partner with one. The curriculum is copyrighted, so you can't just download it from random sites. That's probably why people ask about "downloads" — there's no legitimate free download. You buy or borrow the manuals.

Our Whole Lives Training Structure

The facilitator training is typically a one-day intensive workshop, though some groups break it into two half-days. You learn the pedagogy, how to handle difficult questions, and how to create a safe space. The actual training involves role-playing scenarios where you practice responding to things like "What if someone asks about oral sex?" or "A participant says their parent told them this is sin." I learned the hard way that the training manual assumes you already know basic anatomy terminology. During my first training, I froze when someone asked me to explain the difference between the clitoris and the vulva on the spot. I'd read the materials but hadn't practiced saying them out loud. My workaround was simple: I kept a reference card in my pocket with all the anatomical terms and their plain-English equivalents. I still use it. The curriculum covers topics in this general order for adolescents: bodies and changes, relationships and dating, consent and boundaries, sexual orientation and gender identity, STIs and contraception, and media literacy. For adults, it goes deeper into long-term relationship dynamics, sexual health across the lifespan, and navigating cultural or religious conflicts around sexuality. What most people miss when they start is that OLLI is fundamentally values-based. It's not just information delivery. Each session includes reflection components — journaling prompts, small group discussions, whole group sharing. If you treat it like a lecture series, it falls flat. The training emphasizes that the facilitator's role is to guide, not to preach. Another counter-intuitive point: the curriculum explicitly states that facilitators should disclose their own values when asked directly, but should not impose them. This means you have to be comfortable saying "I believe X" while also being okay with participants believing Y. I had a facilitator once who tried to stay "neutral" on everything, which actually came across as dismissive. The right move is acknowledgment without domination. One edge case I ran into: a participant brought their teenage child to an adult session because they couldn't find childcare. The child was 14 and clearly old enough for the adolescent curriculum. I pulled the trainer aside and we quietly moved the kid to the appropriate age group materials from a neighboring congregation's collection. Never happened again after that — I started reminding people at registration to confirm which session they were attending. The training also covers legal obligations. Mandatory reporting. If a participant discloses abuse, you're required to report it. The curriculum gives you scripts for handling this, but it's something you need to internalize before you facilitate. I recommend writing down your local reporting procedures and keeping them in your facilitator binder. For actual access to the materials, the UUA bookstore sells the manuals by age group. Prices range from about $20 to $40 per manual depending on the edition. You can also request to borrow a copy from a nearby UUA congregation if you're just trying it out. Some libraries carry them too. If you're looking for a free starting point before committing, the UUA has a free facilitator guide PDF on their website that outlines the structure and philosophy. It's not the full curriculum but it'll tell you whether this is something your group wants to pursue. The main bottleneck with OLLI is that it requires ongoing training refreshers. If you don't facilitate for more than a year, they recommend taking the refresher workshop. This isn't a one-and-done certification. It's a living practice that benefits from regular engagement with the material and other facilitators. I've found that the most successful sessions happen when facilitators build a loose network with other groups in their area. Exchange questions, share resources, collaborate on difficult topics. The training gives you the foundation, but the community of practice is what keeps you from burning out.