About Scarleteen

Scarleteen contains thousands of original, comprehensive, and accurate sexuality, health and relationship⁠ (relationship: An ongoing interaction or association with another person, place or thing.) articles, guides, factsheets and advice answers, based on the expressed needs of young people themselves and all available at no cost. Our widely inclusive, expansive content is thoughtfully written and edited by adult, emerging adult or teen writers, and regularly fact-checked and updated as needed with current, medically-accurate information.

Our message boards, live chat, text/SMS line and our reddit offer young people the ability to talk directly with one of our staff and members of our community at no cost to them. Our direct services are actively moderated to provide a safe, comfortable space and accurate, compassionately delivered information, staffed by our staff and trained peer volunteers. Our direct services are used for an array of questions and answers, long discussions, emotional support, help finding in-person care or other resources, and, in the services that are community based, to engage in safe, respectful peer-to-peer discussion. Our direct service interactions primarily inform our static content and outreach.

We frequently help our users find outside sexual⁠ (sexual: About or relating in some way to sex or sexuality.) /reproductive healthcare services, mental healthcare, LGBTQIA+ support, local children and family services, sexual abuse⁠ (abuse: Purposeful harm or mistreatment of another person, which can be verbal, emotional, physical or sexual. An ongoing pattern or cycle of such mistreatment or harm can characterize an abusive relationship.) and other crisis care, books, other websites, community centers and other resources. Staff can also be available to users to make screening/intake phone calls if they feel nervous about first calling themselves or if they are not sure a service is bonafide.

We provide offline teen outreach education, support and training to other organizations and groups, primarily through or at sexual/reproductive health clinics, community and school groups and teen homeless/transitional shelters. We have provided additional outreach, training and education at colleges, universities, schools, community centers and conferences, to students, parents and to fellow teen and sexual health workers and educators. Scarleteen also frequently provides expert information for articles, books, podcasts, studies and other media about topics like teen, emerging adult and general sexuality, sexual health, relationships, queer⁠ (queer: In the context of sexuality, a broad term for sexual orientation that can describe any number of orientations which are not heterosexual. People who identify as queer may be bisexual or pansexual, gay or lesbian, questioning, asexual or more.) sexuality and gender identity⁠ (gender identity: A person's own sense of whether and in what sense they feel they might be a man, a woman, neither, a mixture of genders, or another gender entirely.) , parenting, and sex⁠ (sex: Different things people choose to do to actively express or enact sexuality and sexual feelings; often this involves genitals, but not always. ) education. You can see some of where we have appeared in media over the years here.

Scarleteen provides active, engaged mentorship and guidance for our volunteers and interns, and participates in and supports youth leadership events and initiatives outside the organization. Scarleteen is long considered by many to be a highly influential leader in progressive and inclusive sexuality education, and we have directly participated in and supported activism to influence and change public policy, like teaming up with the ACLU to fight the COPA.