Resources

This brief summarizes available literature on strategies for trauma-responsive affirming care in a way that is relevant for administrators, managers, and professionals whose work centers youth with experience in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, youth experiencing homelessness, and opportunity youth. We intend for these strategies to be relevant in both medical settings and youth-supporting organizations. In this brief, we define “trauma-responsive affirming care” as a strengths-based approach that responds to the ways in which traumatic experiences intersect with gender identity and sexual orientation—as well as with other identities such as racial/ethnic identity, socioeconomic status, and immigration status—to impact a person’s needs.

Understanding sex-based harassment is an important tool for youth-supporting professionals and can empower opportunity youth as they navigate the workplace. This resource describes how youth-supporting professionals can aid youth. While it is true that youth-supporting professionals may not be able to fully prevent harassment from occurring, they can tailor services and supports to help protect youth—and to help youth protect themselves—by recognizing harassing behaviors and navigating how to address harassment if it does take place.

Opportunity youth are young people ages 16 to 24 who are not working nor enrolled in school. They are a diverse group who come from different backgrounds, races/ethnicities, and communities and who have varying strengths, resources, and needs. This infographic highlights key findings from Activate’s analysis of the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of opportunity youth using the National Survey of Family Growth.

This guide is a research-informed resource designed for professionals who work with young people who experience the child welfare or justice systems, homelessness, or disconnection from school and work. It is intended to facilitate a conversation that centers young people’s birth control preferences, needs, and priorities. The guidance it offers was informed by research and conversations with young people who have lived expertise and with youth-supporting professionals.

This resource is a research-based, three-part training for professionals who support opportunity youth attempting to enter or reconnect to employment. This training helps professionals who support opportunity youth better understand and address sex-based harassment in the workplace that opportunity youth may face, based on their specific circumstances and contexts.

This brief addresses the gap in information about the SRH of opportunity youth by conducting an original analysis of data from the 2011-2019 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), the findings from which are presented in this brief.

This resource is designed for youth-supporting professionals—especially case managers—who provide direct care services to young people who experience the child welfare or justice systems, homelessness, or disconnection from school and work. (Throughout this resource, we refer to this group of youth simply as “young people.”) Case managers are critical gatekeepers to information about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) for these young people and are responsible for making referrals and helping them access SRH services and resources.

This brief aims to provide child welfare practice professionals (e.g., caseworkers) information about the societal conditions that influence young peoples’ sexual and reproductive health—the “social determinants of health”—and offer them guidance on incorporating this knowledge in daily practice.

This resource provides answers to common questions that youth-supporting professionals may have about sex trafficking. Some of these questions may be of interest to all youth-supporting professionals, regardless of the young people with whom they work. Other questions may be of particular interest to youth-supporting professionals who work with young people who experience the child welfare and/or justice systems, homelessness, and/or disconnection from school and work.