A Modern Framework of Adolescence Health Programs
Adolescence represents a sensitive time period during an individual’s development during which physical, psychological, and social risk factors for non-communicable diseases are established. As such, there is a necessity to engage adolescents in planning and decision-making processes that will affect their future health. This paper describes the need for more innovative and transversal actions, starting from the utility of a multidisciplinary and systemic approach to health. One way in which this can be achieved is by shifting adolescent health programs (AHPs) from a clinically oriented to an education-based model. In particular, AHPs need to consider a personalized and systemic approach to the well-being of adolescents in order to potentiate their strengths and improve weaknesses, enhancing self-esteem, empowerment, and resilience.
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Adolescence represents a sensitive time period during an individual’s development during which physical, psychological, and social risk factors for non-communicable diseases are established. As such, there is a necessity to engage adolescents in planning and decision-making processes that will affect their future health. This paper describes the need for more innovative and transversal actions, starting from the utility of a multidisciplinary and systemic approach to health. One way in which this can be achieved is by shifting adolescent health programs (AHPs) from a clinically oriented to an education-based model. In particular, AHPs need to consider a personalized and systemic approach to the well-being of adolescents in order to potentiate their strengths and improve weaknesses, enhancing self-esteem, empowerment, and resilience.
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The presentation explores the Human Centered Design methods A360 employed during its design phase and the resulting insights that emerged. The presentation further captures process evaluation findings – led by A360’s external third-party evaluator Itad – while offering a deep dive into A360’s experience for rural, married girls in Ethiopia and peri-/urban married and unmarried girls in Tanzania.
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Designing for and with Girls: A Girl with a Plan!
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A360’s brief showcases how country level insights gathered from field-testing as part of human centered design in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania can be used to frame clear messaging that resonates strongly with girls. This document shares data on conversion rates that indicate positive shifts in adoption of contraception in each geography providing evidence to ASRH practitioners on the importance of using insights as a blueprint for rapid change.
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Supporting Scalable, Youth-Powered Programming at the Community Level in Ethiopia: The Case of Smart Start
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A360’s Smart Start is an intervention that uses financial planning as an entry point to engage young married couples in planning their futures and reaching financial stability, positioning contraception as a tool to achieve their self-defined goals. Smart Start supports girls aged 15-19 and their partners to understand the resources they’ll need for the families they desire. This technical brief analyzes A360’s strategy and lessons learned to date, presenting a case study of the A360 experience in Ethiopia, and offering considerations for similar AYSRH implementation in future settings.
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Integrating Human-Centered Design in a Multidisciplinary Effort to Address Provider Bias: A Summary of the Beyond Bias Experience
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With an aim to expand the knowledge base of application of HCD in global health programs, the Beyond Bias project has documented, in a three-part series, its experience using HCD in a multidisciplinary approach to develop effective, scalable adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health interventions. The briefs cover programmatic challenges and opportunities, outline salient ideas and concepts that were generated and tested, share key insights on provider bias, and present the finalized intervention design.
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Men Stand Up
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This report presents perceptions of young men (aged 18 to 24 years) on issues related to family planning in India, Kenya, Mali & Nigeria. Insights presented in this document highlight young men’s experiences, needs and vulnerabilities related to sexual and reproductive health in the four countries. It showcases how participatory design and quantitative approaches have been used to encourage young men to tell their stories and offer personal perspectives on what they care most about. Program implementers, design researchers and other ASRH practitioners would find this document useful, particularly to better understand contextual differences and similarities across select geographies.
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Youth Engagement Plan – PSI Ethiopia
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This guidance document captures how PSI Ethiopia engaged youth as Young Designers in the Adolescent 360 program. It provides practitioners with a comprehensive list of considerations when planning for youth (including a workplan template).
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Structural interventions aiming to enable adolescent use of contraception in low- and middle-income countries
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Reducing adolescent pregnancy is a global public health priority and enabling contraceptive use is one way to achieve this. Broader determinants of contraceptive use, such as poverty, education and social norms, can affect knowledge, attitudes, motivation and ability to access and use contraception. Structural interventions aim to address these broader determinants and include cash transfer interventions, interventions to encourage participation in school, empowerment interventions and interventions aiming to change social norms. We conducted an evidence synthesis to explore a) what structural interventions have been evaluated for their effect on adolescent contraceptive use in low- and middle-income countries and b) how such interventions may work.
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A360 Evaluation Findings Synthesis: No 1. How might we better meet the needs of adolescent couples with contraceptive counseling and services through Ethiopia’s Health Extension Program?
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This publication is a summary of the process evaluation done by ITAD, for A360’s Smart Start project in Ethiopia. It highlights the methodology used for this process evaluation, and the key insights that were arrived at through action research with the users and a sounding workshop with the A360 team. The publication also provides direction and recommendations that are informed by the insights generated through the process evaluation of the Smart Start project. This is a great resource for implementers and evaluators who are seeking a methodology and some inspiration to evaluate their programs.