In the article we discusses the dilemmas and challenges related to implementation of educative actions in sexual health for adolescents in the Family Health Strategy (FHS) of the cities Petrolina-PE e Juazeiro-BA. The relevance of this work is based on the fact that still persists in many health units, curative practices that run against to the promotion of health recommended by SUS. As instruments for data collect, focal groups were conducted with 360 adolescents, 72 interviews with health professionals and 1024 hours of participant observation in eight devices of FHS. There was a lack of educational activities geared to teenagers, justified by the physical and material insecurity, the lack of professionals and the lack of professionals in the network. So, in defense of a popular and emancipatory education, the study points to the need to think about health care practices based on the formation of subject-citizens responsible for the care of their own sexual health.
family health; adolescent health; health education