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About Advocates for Youth

Advocates for Youth partners with youth leaders, adult allies, and youth-serving organizations to advocate for policies and champion programs that recognize young people’s rights to honest sexual health information; accessible, confidential, and affordable sexual health services; and the resources and opportunities necessary to create sexual health equity for all youth.

Our Vision: Rights. Respect. Responsibility.

Advocates for Youth envisions a society that views sexuality as normal and healthy and treats young people as a valuable resource.

RIGHTS: Youth have the inalienable right to honest sexual health information; confidential, consensual sexual health services; and equitable opportunities to reach their full potential.

RESPECT: Youth deserve respect. Valuing young people means authentically involving them in the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs and policies that affect their health and well-being.

RESPONSIBILITY: Society has the responsibility to provide young people with all of the tools they need to safeguard their sexual health, and young people have the responsibility to protect themselves.

3Rs Dedication

This curriculum is dedicated to the memory of our dear colleague Barbara Huberman, Advocates’ Director of Education and Outreach from 1994 to 2014.

Barbara had a tremendous influence on our collective work here at Advocates for Youth. It was she who coined the term Rights, Respect, Responsibility to reflect findings from her decade long efforts coordinating the European Study Tour. Hundreds of youth-serving professionals participated, traveling to the Netherlands, France and Germany in an effort to better understand the values, attitudes, policies and programs that helped young people in northern Europe have much better sexual health outcomes than their peers in the United States. It is through this work that Barb helped Advocates to shape the values that underpin our mission to this day:

Rights: Youth have the inalienable right to honest sexual health information; confidential, consensual sexual health services; and equitable opportunities to reach their full potential.

Respect: Youth deserve respect. Valuing young people means authentically involving them in the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs and policies that affect their health and well-being.

Responsibility: Society has the responsibility to provide young people with all of the tools they need to safeguard their sexual health, and young people have the responsibility to protect themselves.

We honor Barb’s vision and leadership by creating the Rights, Respect, Responsibility: A K-12 Sexuality Education Curriculum and ensuring it is free for all to access so that money will no longer stand as a barrier to young people receiving the high quality sexuality education to which they have a right.