Empower Youth to Lead and Make Decisions About Their Sexual and Reproductive Health
NCYL provides a platform for youth-led conversations about healthy sexual development and access to education and information about their sexual and reproductive health rights.
NCYL’s Reproductive Health Equity Project for Foster Youth (RHEP) aims to normalize, support, and promote the bodily autonomy and healthy sexual development of youth in foster care. We provide resources so they feel empowered to make confident, informed decisions about their health.
Center Youth Leaders
NCYL RHEP convenes a Youth Advisory Board (YAB) made up of current and former foster youth who lead strategies to ensure all young people in foster care receive appropriate sexual and reproductive health information and support and feel comfortable and safe in their gender and sexual identity.
YAB members engage their peers in important conversations about healthy development through a blog and podcast, and they help develop fact sheets, trainings and other tools to help youth get the information they need to make important decisions about their own health.
It is time to listen to youth
Health, education, and child welfare systems have failed to reach, engage, and guide youth in foster care across a sexual and reproductive health service journey that meets their needs, circumstances, and goals.
NCYL RHEP is an outlet for youth to speak directly to service providers about sexual and reproductive health. They offer their expert insights on the challenges and issues that they face to give providers the context they need to support the sexual and reproductive health of their clients.
Providing an information hub
NCYL RHEP also provides a wealth of resources designed for youth to help them understand what healthy sexual development means, as well as the latest in sexual and reproductive health rights and what to do if their rights are violated.
