Projects & Research

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Current Projects

We’re proud to be working alongside schools, educators, and communities to create impactful RSE programs. These projects are driven by real needs and shaped through shared learning, practical tools, and meaningful partnerships.

The RSE Project sits within a broader research centre at Curtin University — the Collaboration for Evidence, Research and Impact in Public Health (CERIPH). CERIPH conducts empirical research, evaluation, consultancy, and workforce capacity building across a range of public health issues, including relationships and sexuality education (RSE), sexual violence prevention, and more.

RSE Training for Regional School Nurses

This project aims to support regional school nurses to feel empowered, confident and capable to support the needs of young people in their community. The RSE Project in collaboration with WA Country Health Service (WACHS), have developed a comprehensive 6 module eLearning program that guides nurses through content such as:

Introducing what RSE is and why it's important
How to set up safe RSE learning environments
Sex and relationship laws relevant for young people
How to support and be inclusive of all kinds of development stages and diverse identities/experiences
Contemporary RSE issues and challenges for young people
How to turn all this knowledge into tangible change and practice

The course is made up of written content, quizzes, videos and resource lists. Participants are invited to attend an online live Q+A after course completion to ensure their questions are answers and embed ongoing support.

This is a 1-year project and will run until the end of 2025.

Evaluation of a Protective Education Program*

This project aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the Safe4Kids Protective Education Program for children aged 3-5 years of age. The evaluation involves a mixed-methods approach to evaluate the 10-week program with up to 5 Childcare Centres in Armadale Western Australia. The evaluation involves:

Attending the initial childcare centre program training information sessions
Observing post program knowledge questions asked to children by childcare centre staff
Reviewing pre and post program knowledge and attitude surveys completed by childcare centre staff and parents
Interviewing parents and childcare staff about their experience implementing the program and their awareness of child knowledge change
Reviewing online support program data

Data will be collated, analysed and developed into a report and/or publication that reflects findings, learnings and recommendations for this program and others.

This is a 1 year project and will run until the end of 2025.

*Please note this project has ethics approval by Curtin University to be conducted: HRE2025-0036.

RSE in Catholic School Contexts*

This project aims to explore the perspectives and needs of students, families, and staff in Catholic schools in South Australia (SA) and the Northern Territory (NT). The RSE Project, in collaboration with Catholic Education SA, and Catholic Education NT, have developed 4 online surveys to be distributed to their primary and secondary schools. The project involves:

Survey of Catholic primary school (year 6) students
Survey of Catholic high school students
Survey of Catholic school staff
Survey of parents of children attending a Catholic school

When data collection and analysis are complete, funders will be provided a detailed final project report and infographic summaries. Additional knowledge dissemination activities such as conference presentations, and peer-reviewed publications will occur.

This is a 6-month project and will run until the end of 2025.

*An ethics application is currently underway for this project.

RSE Audit Tool for a Whole School Approach*

This project aims to help schools plan and implement whole school strategies to RSE using the key components of the World Health Organisation Health Promoting Schools Framework. The tool will provide schools the opportunity to assess what they are currently doing, what they would like to do (and have capacity to do), and what support they need to progress these strategies. The process recognises school staff are time poor and enables them to highlight what is realistic and relevant for their school community and will be evaluated in two phases:

Phase 1: An online audit survey will be completed at the beginning of the project and then 2 years later.
Phase 2: School staff interviews will be invited to discuss the audit tool implementation, successes and barriers around whole school strategies.

This is an on-going project with schools able to complete the audit without being involved in the evaluation.

*An ethics application is currently underway for this project.

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Case Study Schools

Since 2018, the RSE Project has been helping multiple school communities in Western Australia deliver a whole-school approach to RSE. While we assist many WA schools yearly with their RSE program, four unique school communities are currently engaged in this ongoing case study:

metropolitan primary school (K-6)
metropolitan secondary school (7-12)
metropolitan Education Support Centre (7-12)
remote school with a high proportion of indigenous students (K-12)

This publication explains how each school community is being supported to develop comprehensive strategies unique to their school. The focus is on the provision of comprehensive RSE through a whole-school approach. Various partnerships and methods of engagement are being established. The implementation of this approach is currently being evaluated via surveys, focus groups, interviews, document reviews and audit tools; involving students, school staff and parents.

We look forward to sharing more results from this project with you soon!

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Our Research

The RSE Project team is made up of researchers and educators who combine their collective skills to ensure projects are underpinned and driven by data, best-practice principles and a continuous improvement approach.

Recent Publications

Below are some recent publications most relevant to the RSE Project audience.

Teacher Research

Preparation of the pre-service teacher to deliver comprehensive sexuality education: Teaching content and evaluation of provision.
Hendriks, J., Mayberry, L., & Burns, S.(2024).BMC Public Health, 24, Article 1528.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18982-0
Australian teacher attitudes, beliefs, and comfort forwards sexuality and gender diverse students.
Burns, S., Saltis, H., Hendriks, J., Abdolmanafi, A., Davis-McCabe, C., Tilley, P. J. M., & Winter, S. (2023). Sex Education, 23(5), 540-555.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2022.2087177

School Research

Enablers and barriers of implementing a whole school approach to ovulatory menstrual health literacy: a case study of a single-sex school in Western Australia.
Roux, F., J. Hendriks, H. J. Chih, and S. Burns. Australian Educational Researcher 52 (2): 1707-1730.
http://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-024-00782-5
‘It’s All About Context’: Building School Capacity to Implement a Whole-School Approach to Bullying.
Pearce, N., Monks, H., Alderman, N., Hearn, L., Burns, S., Runions, K., Francis, J., & Cross, D. (2024). International Journal of Bullying Prevention, 6(1), 53-68.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s42380-022-00138-6

Student Research

Experiences of Western Australian youth when seeking sexual health information, testing and treatment.
McCausland, K., Graham-Geraghty, L., Bacon, M., Mak, D., Staniszewski, J., Lied-Cordruwisch, L., & Hendriks, J. (2022). International Journal of Sexual Health, 34(sup1), 163
https://doi.org/10.1080/19317611.2022.2017618
Attitudes towards abortion in male and female adolescents with diverse sexual and pregnancy experiences: A cross-sectional study.
Hendriks J, Fyfe S, Doherty DA, Jacques A, Styles I, Hickey M & Skinner R. (2020). Sexual Health, 17(1), 77-86.
https://doi.org/10.1071/sh19084

Parent Research

Parental attitudes towards sexual orientation and gender diversity: challenging LGBT discrimination in Australian schools.
Hendriks, J., N. Francis, H. Saltis, K. Marson, J. Walsh, T. Lawton, and S. Burns. 2025. Culture Health and Sexuality 27 (6): 657-672.
http://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2024.2394223
Sexually explicit media literacy education: a scoping review of parental perspectives and relevant resources.
Zen, M., J. Hendriks, and S. Burns. 2025. Sex Education 25 (3): 359-375
https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2024.2338275

RSE Publications List

A full list of publications associated with the RSE Project can be found below, organised year or theme.

Publications by Year

Publications by Theme

Projects & Research

Current Projects

Case Study Schools

Our Research

Current Projects

Case Study Schools

Our Research

Recent Publications

RSE Publications List

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