Numbers to Narratives
Using data to uplift stories, uncover needs, and build community readiness for healing-centered and inclusive sex ed
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Making the case for sex ed
When it comes to advancing adolescent sexual and reproductive health and well-being, you want all the support you can get. But how do you build community support?
Whether you’re facing policy restrictions, concerns from families, a lack of prioritization for sex ed, or other challenges, Numbers to Narratives workshops get the conversation started and help you to gain buy-in for healing-centered and inclusive sex ed.
Leading these workshops in your community can help you build support by uplifting adolescent health data and stories.
Numbers to Narratives resources don’t just talk about why healing-centered and inclusive approaches are important—they provide concrete ways for organizers and participants to use them throughout the entire process.
Why Numbers to Narratives?
From healthy relationships to improved social/emotional learning and even increased media literacy, the case for sex ed is strong.
But how do you begin to incorporate inclusive, healing-centered sex ed in your community?
By uplifting stories
Public health data are often the starting places for understanding health trends both nationally and locally. However, even data can reflect biases around gender, race, and ethnicity that ends up skewing the public’s understanding of health issues. From a lack of visibility for people from marginalized communities to ineffective strategies that ultimately cause harm, biases in data have a wide range of detrimental effects.
Numbers to Narratives combats gaps in inclusive data by underscoring the role of diverse narratives. By providing guidance for people leading workshops on how to intentionally seek out inclusive data and including diverse workshop participants and giving everyone a space to share their lived experience, Numbers to Narratives uplifts stories that are more inclusive than data alone.
By uncovering needs
You may have access to national data related to public health needs, but what do these numbers really mean? And how do they relate to the needs of young people in your local community? Numbers to Narratives empowers educators to lead conversations making sense of local adolescent health data and question what the numbers mean for their community.
Visual forms of data are pivotal in helping people both understand the nature of an issue and problem solve. By connecting local data with visual storytelling, Numbers to Narratives supports data literacy, helping community members better understand the needs of young people in their area—and how to take action to meet those needs.
By building community readiness
The healing-centered approach woven throughout Numbers to Narratives places a focus on community strengths, as workshop participants identify existing resources in their community. This exercise builds participants’ capacity to understand, locate, and improve local resources.
In addition, community members fully lead the Numbers to Narratives process, with local educators and young people driving the process. Young peoples’ well-being is connected to the influence they have in their schools and communities, so centering young people’s involvement helps them thrive.
Bhargava, R., Deahl, E., Letouzé, E., Noonan, A., Sangokoya, D., Shoup, N., Frohardt, M., Hoffman, W., Pentland, A., Lefébure, A. (2015, September). Beyond data literacy: Reinventing community engagement and empowerment in the age of data. Data-Pop Alliance. https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/123471/Beyond%20Data%20Literacy%202015.pdf
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Start planning
From logistics to evaluation, the Implementation Guide includes useful checklists that walk you step-by-step through the process of leading workshops in your community
Need a printer-friendly version?
See it in action
In this case study, see how real-life communities used a similar process to make sense of local data
Find the right data
The Data Storytelling Guide includes tips for sourcing data to maximize the impact of your storytelling
Host a follow-up workshop
This guide outlines a workshop with youth-supporting professionals
Better together
Implementing Numbers to Narratives? Stay in touch to help shape the future of this Thrivology resource.
Want to chat?
We’re here to help you put these resources to work in real life!
“Remember that these workshops are just a starting point to create buy-in and momentum to get the ball rolling!”
– Charlie Blue Brahm, Lead Designer
More from Thrivology
This project is supported by the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award (1 PHEPA000006-01) totaling $1,063,776.35 with 100 percent funded by OPA/OASH/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by OPA/OASH/HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit opa.hhs.gov.
