Top 10 Tips for Healthy Relationships
By RHEP Youth Advisory Board
June 4, 2025
In healthy relationships, we feel safe and comfortable expressing respect for ourselves and others. Mutual trust, honesty, good communication, empathy, and consent are all essential components of a healthy relationship. On the other hand, unhealthy relationships usually have a lack of mutual trust, effective communication, compromise, honesty, or consent. In some cases, unhealthy relationships can lead to physical, emotional, or sexual violence.
Our Youth Advisory Board produced this guide to assist other young people who are interested in developing healthy relationships with friends, family members, and romantic partners. Their guide is based on their 2023 research project in which they interviewed current & former foster youth with and without sexual trauma. Their responses helped us to identify the skills these young people implemented to build healthy relationships as they grew older. In addition to these tips, you can scan the QR code for handpicked resources to help you strengthen your relationship skills.
Additional Resources
- Practice mutual compassion
- Always engage in honest communication, even in times of conflict
- Video: ”The Most Effective Way to Make a Request”
- List: “All About Communication”
- Manage Conflict Article: ”The Four Horsemen: The Antidotes”
- Don’t let your trauma define you or your relationships because it is only one small piece of your whole self
- Be open to trusting yourself and others again
- Be patient; personal growth happens over time
- Set boundaries; share your needs in your relationship
- Understanding yourself, your emotions, and your needs
- Learn when it’s time to grow and when it’s time to move on
- Redefine your relationship to relationships
- Recognize that conflict is inevitable in your relationship, and that is okay
