The South Australian government has released a list of approved sexual education providers for the state’s public schools after a 2024 presentation at one regional high school allegedly referenced bestiality.
An external provider delivered a presentation about “respectful relationships” to female Year nine students at regional Renmark High School.
At the time, those involved said parents were not notified about the presentation and students said they were unsupervised when left with the presenter.
The hour-long presentation was run by a third-party speaker facilitated by headspace Berri, which is operated by FocusOne Health under licence.
After some students shared details of the presentation with their parents, the SA Department of Education then launched an investigation into the content shared with the teenagers. At least one family responded to the presentation by removing their daughter from the school for several weeks and stating they had no confidence in the way sexual health education was being delivered in SA schools. At the time of the incident, another family reported unenrolling their children from the school.
A spokesperson from headspace says a review of the incident had been conducted and that “a number of enhancements” were identified and used to improve its services.
“headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation supports all of the lead agencies that operate headspace centres, including FocusOne’s continued operation of headspace Berri.”
In another statement, headspace chief clinical officer Vikki Ryall says the organisation would apply the learnings across its national network of centres, which are all operated under licence by third-party organisations.
Approved third-party providers only
Last week, SA Education Minister Blair Boyer released a list with just three approved providers: SHINE SA, Life Ed and Elephant Ed.
Boyer says the introduction of the approved list was a direct response to the investigation’s findings.
“It showed that obviously the content taught in that class was not appropriate,” he says.
“As part of it we went back and did some pretty detailed work around those third parties who were or are teaching the curriculum in our schools to make sure they meet what are pretty stringent requirements.
“We determined that three were doing it exceptionally well. There were some others that needed to do a bit of work if they are to be considered again to be on the approved provider list, and that for the time being they will not be.”
Boyer says providing government schools in the state with a list of approved providers will help ensure all sex education is aligned with the national curriculum.
He says the approved providers were assessed based on evidence of quality, links to evidence-based sexual health education, evidence of student outcomes, a “strict” and formal complaints handling process and their delivery of the national curriculum.
“It narrows the number of organisations that can provide the sexual education in our schools and I support that,” says Boyer.
“We have, as part of that, made sure there is capacity from those three very large organisations … with some pretty strong proven track records like SHINE and Life Ed and Elephant Ed, that they can meet demand in terms of schools wanting to use their services.”
