We thought it time for a proper introduction…

Now that applications are well underway and teens are beginning to be approved as members of our third ever fall cohort, we thought it time to (re)introduce ourselves to this community!

Btw, our youth applications are still open: find them here

Tara Michaela Jones

is a sex educator who has been working in this field for the past five years, beginning during her sophomore year of college. Being a sex educator has meant supplementing the sex education people did not get in their schools or communities, by creating online content, writing articles for various publications, and hosting workshops. Since beginning to educate, her Instagram community has grown to over 13,000 followers, and her work has been featured in Buzzfeed as a Black Sex Educator to follow, as well as in Marie Claire, Elite Daily and Well+Good. In November of 2022, she had the idea of training the next generation of sexual health advocates, to take on a similar community role to the one she created. With YSP, she is responsible for overseeing the organization as whole, including logistics, staff and board coordination, curriculum design, and preparing grant proposals. She is the organizations’ lead educator.

Mattie Bieberly

is our incredible Director of Communications. She found out about The Youth Sexpert Program through a post on LinkedIn and was brought on because of her passion for sex education and dedication to growing our community. Mattie’s role in communications entails being the point person for all things social media, press relations, and collaborative outreach efforts. She strategizes our content calendar, produces both static and video content, sources and crafts captions, and manages our online community. This role has been a great fit for her, as she has interests in journalism and in her free time is a regular contributing writer for a parenting website. Her efforts with The Youth Sexpert Program have successfully attracted new board members and facilitated collaborative social media campaigns with other organizations. Most importantly, social media is our number one means of recruiting students who may be interested in our program.

Natasha Mellini

Natasha, a former science teacher at a Catholic school in Florida, took note of the lack of information and abundant misinformation her former students had about sexual and reproductive health. After leaving that workplace, she decided to start a podcast with those students in mind. In collaborating on a podcast episode, a beautiful partnership was born, and Natasha joined our team. Natasha is our Director of Parent Advocacy and Community Relations. The first part of that title defines her being a point person for our parent communications, including parent education events we have hosted such as our panels each summer about approaching sex education as a parent. The second part of that title defines her being a point person communications with students. Natasha coordinates our parent consent form process. We recognize that while legally necessary and ethically right, requiring parent consent is a barrier to entry for many students who may be interested in our program. Natasha strategizes around different options we can offer youth in this process.

Both Natasha and Mattie have an abundance of firsthand experiences related to current and present full time jobs in religious schools in the southern United States. All of our staff are in their mid 20’s, as are eight of our advisory board members, which is crucial to creating an unintimidating environment for youth to be able to share with us. Further, both Mattie and Natasha have professional backgrounds in education, which, married with Tara’s background in speaking publicly and openly about sex, is the perfect recipe. We are all AFAB folks who are woman identifying, and have each come from backgrounds where we do not feel like we were properly prepared growing up for what it means to be a sexual being and a woman, existing in the world. Our dedication to an inclusive curriculum for our first semester is not only based on our own experiences, but those also far outside of them.

Know a teen who might be interested in YSP? Our applications are still open through August 18th!

How the Application Works:

1. Young people apply directly via our website, including information about their after school availability.

2. A parent/guardian then completes our consent form. Our liaison Natasha helps applicants through this process, offering options on how to reach this requirement and acting as a direct representative parents can run their questions by. The application allows parents to opt in or out of individual workshops if needed, our hope is that parents opt out of individual workshops on behalf of their teen, rather than the program as a whole.

3. Once accepted, students join a small, supportive cohort (10–15 students) for a semester of transformative learning.

Well wishes, 🧡

The Youth Sexpert Program Team