LSS Sexual Health and Hygiene Social Stories

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota’s (LSS) Seeing and Exploring Life’s Future (SELF) service created these sexual health and hygiene social stories with the intention of supporting individuals, their parents, caregivers, and families in necessary sexual health and hygiene practices.

While working with parents of individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DD), some of the most common questions we receive center around how to best support their confidence and understanding on the topics of puberty, sexual health, menstruation and hygiene. In the quest to find resources for these families, we quickly realized that social stories for such sexual health topics either did not exist or did not seem to be accurate or comprehensive. Not finding tools that represented our core mission of cultural inclusion, medical accuracy and shame-free and comprehensive health information — we decided to create our own!

Goals for the Social Stories

LSS SELF’s mission is to provide comprehensive, medically-accurate and culturally-inclusive sexual health education for everyone. While these anatomically correct social stories were created to support our work within the disability community, they benefit anyone with a body.

Our decision to create these social stories was driven by a series of goals congruent with the LSS SELF team’s mission and the vision of Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota that all people have the opportunity to live and work in community with full and abundant lives.

Our Goals:

• Promote autonomy
• Minimize the potential for victimization
• Help people take control of their health
• Create comfort

About the Social Stories

In collaboration with a local Twin Cities artist and a team of occupational therapists, the SELF team created six unique social stories including:

• How I Wash My Circumcised Penis
• How I Wash My Uncircumcised Penis
• How I Put On a Condom
• How I Use a Tampon
• How I Use a Menstrual Pad
• How I Wash My Vulva

Each social story is 4” x 5.5” or the size of a quarter sheet of paper. These stories are printed on a 10-point polyester paper. This is durable enough to withstand moisture and continual usage, meaning they can be placed in a bathroom or shower and hold up to being sanitized between uses. Each story is bound together in the upper left corner by a ring to allow individuals to hang them up and easily flip through the pages.

Purchase Your Social Stories Copy 

There are six social stories in total.  Each story costs $25, or you can buy all six for $125. Each purchase will come with access to our accompanying user manual.

To purchase, please follow the link below to complete the purchase form. Once we receive this form, we will confirm your order with total purchase cost via email and provide a link for secure payment at that time.

Purchase your social stories copy now

Any questions or concerns about your purchase can be directed to SELF@lssmn.org.

What Families and Educators are Saying:

• “They are washable!!!!! The content is clear, concise and specific and they are exceptionally well made.”
• “These social stories protect our clients’ bodily autonomy and give them a clear guide to their bodies.”
• “Helps parents be able to bring up awkward talks and discussions when I may not have known how to talk through them before.”
• “It is fantastic to be able to have an answer for families whose children are not given sexual/self-care education in school.”
• “I think these guides will be extremely useful for a particular audience when explaining step by step instructions that can be daunting and confusing when simply explained verbally. The pictures and the simple wording are very effective.”

Acknowledgements

These social stories could not have come together without the support of many of our community members. Thank you to the following contributors:

• Meg Nalezny, MOTR/L., and Jens Tamang, OTR/L., for offering their expertise in occupational therapy.
• Logan Sand, LSS SELF Program Manager, M.Ed. and Kendall Mager, LSS SELF Program Coordinator, for providing sexual health expertise, project development and evaluation.
• Kendall Mager, MSWc, LSS SELF Program Coordinator, for providing sexual health expertise, project development and community outreach to pilot the project.
• Heather Kamia, Program Director, LSS Metro Youth and Family Services, for assistance in the conception and fundraising.
• Kelly Sadler, Graphic Artist, for illustrating the project with artistic and representational imagery.
• Our friends at the Autism Society of Minnesota, Down Syndrome Association of Minnesota, Proof Alliance, and Mad Hatter Wellness for their technical support, encouragement and support throughout this process.
• The Minnesota Department of Health and Ripley Memorial Foundation of the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota for funding this project.

Copyright Notice

© 2022 Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota

Ownership of copyright

The copyright on the sexual health and hygiene social stories and user manual is owned by Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota (LSS).

Adapting, changing, reproducing, redistributing, broadcasting or commercially exploiting all or part of the social stories and user manual in any form is prohibited without written permission from LSS, other than the following:

• You may print or download the user manual after purchase for your personal and non-commercial use only.
• You may provide a copy of the story card content to individual third parties for their personal use with written acknowledgement of Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota as the source of the material.