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Immediate support and sexual assault services

  • RAINN: National Sexual Assault Hotline. Free, confidential support and referrals, available 24/7.

    • Call 800-656-4673, text HOPE to 64673, or visit rainn.org/hotline .

    • RAINN also offers online YouthHelpRoom sessions for survivors ages 14–24; check the website for schedules.

  • Me Too: Ending sexual violence by connecting survivors to resources for healing, an effort founded in 2006 by survivor and activist Tarana Burke. It offers action toolkits, digital programs like the Survivor Healing Series, and campaigns for people who want to help interrupt sexual violence.

  • Me Too Survivor Sanctuary: Explore healing in your own way through our Mind, Body, and Integrative approaches, with lessons in 5, 15, or 25 minutes. You choose where to begin, and wherever you go, you’ll find support made for survivors like you.

  • National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC). Research, educational materials, and resourcesfor survivors, families, and advocates.nsvrc.org

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BIPOC and culturally specific resources

  • Strong Hearts Native Helpline: Native-centered support for Indigenous survivors of sexual and domestic violence.

  • Ujima, Inc.: The National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community: Resources and advocacy addressing violence affecting Black women and communities.

  • Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence: Culturally specific resources addressing gender-based violence in Asian and Pacific Islander communities.

  • Esperanza United: Culturally responsive resources addressing gender-based violence in Latine communities.

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LGBTQIA+ and gender-affirming resources

  • The Trevor Project: LGBTQ+ youth crisis support, information, and community resources.

  • FORGE: Resources addressing violence against transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people.

  • National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network (NQTTCN): Resources for queer and transpeople of color seeking culturallyresponsive mental health care.

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Blank empty list or note paper with a torn top edge and three punched holes on the left side.

WHEN INSTITUTIONS FAIL TO PROTECT YOUNG PEOPLE, HOPE AND HEALING BECOME RADICAL ACTS.

Young people are already redefining healing: speaking out, interrupting cycles of harm, supporting each other, centering hope.

There’s no single right path to healing or justice. Justice doesn’t always feel like healing. Healing doesn’t always require justice. But both can lead us toward truth, repair, and hope.

Start Healing
Tell Your Story
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Different forms of justice and healing can include:

    • Criminal or Civil Legal Proceedings: seeking accountability or protection through courts and law.

    • Title IX Processes: campus or organizational procedures to address sexual misconduct.

    • Workplace & HR Reporting Systems: formal institutional routes to name and address harm.

    • Restorative Justice: a voluntary, highly structured framework that is survivor-centered, focused on repairing harm, establishing accountability, and achieving healing rather than focusing strictly on legal statutes and punishment.

    • Transformative Justice: an abolitionist, community-based framework for responding to sexual violence and interpersonal harm without relying on state carceral systems like the police or prisons.

    • Community Accountability: creating collective responsibility and change without relying on punishment or forced isolation.

    • Therapy, Counseling, and Somatic Work:
      rebuilding connection to body and safety.

    • Creative Expression: writing a letter (even one never sent), painting, dancing, singing, or storytelling.

    • Movement & Nature: running, swimming, hiking, horseback riding, or sitting quietly with the body.

    • Spiritual or Ritual Practices: prayer, meditation, or ceremony to relate, release, and remember.

Supporting Survivors:

  • Friends are often the first people survivors turn to, and how we listen can open or close the door to healing. Support looks like believing, respecting boundaries, and offering presence. Among peers, talking openly about consent, respect, and harm breaks the silence that keeps violence normalized. Together, we can create cultures rooted in care, truth, and accountability.

  • Families and communities are the first places we learn about love, boundaries, and belonging, and often the first places those lessons are broken. Healing begins when we choose to see and speak about harm rather than hide it. By modeling consent, listening without defensiveness, and holding space for accountability instead of denial, we interrupt cycles of silence. When communities invest in care and education, they become places that protect and repair, not repeat harm.

  • As romantic and sexual partners, intimacy is where we can learn or relearn trust, tenderness, and communication after harm. Partners support healing by asking instead of assuming, slowing down, and making consent an ongoing conversation. Repair, apology, and emotional honesty are what make real safety possible. Healthy intimacy is not about control,  it’s about choice, curiosity, and care.

    https://www.whatsok.org

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Tarana Burke, often says: “you cannot adjudicate healing. And what we know for a fact is that worldwide, survivors have learned that justice systems fall short in providing recovery. But something profound happens when we heal on purpose.”