Island teens with questions about relationships, sex and sexuality now have new resources for answers: DoVE’s Teen Centre and its confidential texting line.

The center, which opened last Friday at DoVE’s office in Courthouse Square, was created in response to requests from teens themselves, said DoVE’s director, Betsey Archambault. DoVE staff and volunteers will be on hand to talk in a confidential setting, and several resources will be available as well, meant to address questions and concerns about a variety of issues, ranging from teen dating abuse and its warning signs to questioning one’s sexuality or coming out. Some free contraceptives will be available, as will Plan B, an over-the-counter emergency contraceptive. The center will be open to teens on Friday afternoons through the end of the school year and during regular business hours in the summer. The intent is to fill an unmet need and provide teens with accurate information to make the safest, healthiest, most informed decisions possible.

“We had been hearing from teens that they do not feel like there is a good place to ask some of the more difficult questions,” Archambault said. “After health class, they do not feel like there is a place to go.”

Archambault chairs a sexual health committee, which includes several

school district professionals and community members, and has worked with that group over the last year to create a new plan for the district regarding how it teaches sexual health. In the course of that work, she said she talked to many teens, who made clear their needs were not being met. She and others on the committee also heard about some situations involving teens that concerned them, she said, including unanswered questions, teens becoming sexually involved with people they met online and a practice called “nudes or nah,” where teen boys ask girls to send naked pictures of themselves.

Now, Archambault said, teens will have a designated free, non-judgemental place to go and find people trained to deal with their concerns and questions.

“I am not saying I can solve all these problems,” Archambault added. “What we are doing is creating another access point in the community for teens to feel safe.”

No subject will be off limits.

“We do talk about the difficult stuff,” she said. “We do it without judgment.”

Staff and volunteers will not tell teens what to do, she said, but encourage them to talk about what their concerns are.

“We are not going use shaming language for asking a question,” she added. “We are providing a safe space for teens to ask what they need to ask.”

Among the people ready to help at the center is DoVE’s first teen advocate, Maijah Sanson-Frey, a freshman who recently completed her advocacy training with DoVE. As a fellow teen, she said she understands many of the pressures facing her peers who might want to come by. Some people might not want to talk to her, she said, precisely because she is another teen. But others might.

“If people do, I am at least there,” she said.

Sanson-Frey said she, too, believes students are not getting as much information at school as they would like. Although she has not had health class yet at the high school, she said that the classes she has taken previously did not include information on what makes healthy and unhealthy relationships, and that information alone could be valuable for teens.

Sanson-Frey’s mother, Nyn Grey, is a part-time advocate at DoVE and explained that while DoVE’s mission to serve survivors of domestic violence is vitally important, so is promoting awareness and knowledge about healthy relationships to people at a young age.

“It is advocacy on the foundational level,” she said.

She added that when teens come in, they do not need to talk to anybody — they can spend time reading materials or simply take what they need, whether it be information, condoms or Plan B, or they can stay and talk.

“What we are offering is a non-judgemental space with honest information and non-judgemental advice about healthy relationships and realities about sex,” she said.

In addition to the center, teens can also ask questions of a DoVE staff member anonymously just be texting the question. Teens can ask anything, Archambault said, and they will receive accurate, unbiased answers, which will be completely confidential.

“Teens that are not ready for sex are not going to go out and have it,” Grey added about the new services. “But when they are ready to have it, they will be prepared and empowered.”

Teen Centre hours are 3 to 5 p.m. Fridays during the school year and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday during the summer. The office is located at Courthouse Square. The teen text line is 301-541-DOVE.