About TeenWell
Almost nothing here is written by us: we find the organizations that do this for a living, and make them searchable in the words teens use.
Why an aggregator
There is no shortage of good teen health information. Planned Parenthood, The Trevor Project, the CDC, Nemours KidsHealth and others have spent decades getting it right, with clinicians reviewing every page.
The problem is finding it. A 15-year-old at 1am doesn't search the way a medical site is written. They type "can i get birth control without my parents knowing", and a search engine hands them ads, forums, and a symptom checker that wants their email.
So TeenWell contributes the three things those organizations can't: a question-shaped way in, a curriculum that puts their material in an order, and a promise that nobody is watching.
We don't write the health content
This isn't modesty. It's the basis of the whole thing. A student project has no business telling a teenager how contraception works. Planned Parenthood does.
One deliberate exception: the slide decks on the lesson pages are ours. They're the classroom material we built for this project, and they're labelled as ours wherever they appear so you always know whose words you're reading. Everything else (every search result, every link) belongs to an outside organization.
The rule is enforced by the code, not by good intentions. The data format has no field to type health information into, and the build fails if any link points to a site that isn't on the approved list. The only words we write are navigation: titles, topic names, and the questions that frame each lesson.
By the numbers
- Resources
- 128
- Organizations
- 36
- Lessons
- 25
Important limits
- TeenWell is not a medical provider. Nothing here is medical advice, and nobody here can diagnose or treat you. If it's an emergency, call 911.
- We're not a crisis service. Nobody monitors this site. The help page lists organizations that do answer, day and night.
- Everything is US-focused. All the crisis numbers are US numbers, and the laws described are US laws.
- English only, for now. Many of our sources publish in Spanish, and those are marked. The site itself isn't translated yet.
- We can be wrong about what to include. If a source here doesn't belong, tell us.
Suggest a source, or ask to be removed
If you know a resource teens should find here, send it. If you're one of the organizations we link to and you want the link changed or removed, say so and it's done: no argument, no negotiation.
Contact illaria_liedtke@ryecountryday.org or mpg5050@gmail.com.