William J. Taverner

William J. Taverner, MA, is the co-editor of the American Journal of Sexuality Education and the director of the Center for Family Life Education (CFLE), the education department of Planned Parenthood of Greater Northern New Jersey. He has co-authored numerous sexuality education manuals, including All Together Now: Teaching about Contraception and Safer Sex, Educating about Abortion, Making Sense of Abstinence: Lessons for Comprehensive Sex Education, Positive Images: Teaching Abstinence, Contraception, and Sexual Health, and Streetwise to Sex-Wise: Sexuality Education for High-Risk Youth.

As a trainer, Mr. Taverner may be best known for the “Unequal Partners” national campaign he organized and presented, training thousands of educators, counselors, social workers, nurses, therapists, and other professionals to address issues of power and consent in adult-teen relationships, and for his national “Positive Images” workshops, training educators to teach about contraception and sexual health. He frequently trains early-childhood professionals, helping them respond to young children’s sexual questions and behaviors, and he is currently providing keynote addresses and workshops on his newest educational manual, Making Sense of Abstinence.

Before joining the CFLE in 1998, Mr. Taverner served as the sexuality educator and trainer for Phoenix House, where he developed Sexuality and Substance Abuse, a comprehensive sexuality education program (for people in recovery from substance abuse) and training program (for their counseling staff). Prior to Phoenix House, he worked with people with developmental disabilities, and co-authored the Verbal Informed Sexual Consent Assessment Tool, to help measure an individual’s capacity to give informed sexual consent.

Mr. Taverner is the editor of the eighth, ninth, and tenth editions of Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Human Sexuality, and co-authored the fifth, sixth, and seventh editions of this college reader. He served as a contributing author to the International Encyclopedia of Sexuality and was the first recipient of the “AASECT Founder’s Award” in 2005. Other awards he has received include the 2006 "Golden Apple Award,", given by the Association for Planned Parenthood Leaders in Education (APPLE), and a 2006 national award given by the online journal "Sexual Intelligence".

An adjunct professor of human sexuality at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Mr. Taverner received his Master of Arts degree in human sexuality from New York University.

Mr. Taverner is a distinguished alum of Theta Chi fraternity.