Summary

Advocates for Youth has initiated a program to improve contraceptive access for youth in Burkina Faso and in the Andean Region of South America. Advocates for Youth worked with local partners—Mwangaza Action in Burkina Faso and the Instituto de Educación y Salud (IES) in Peru—to develop and conduct a training designed to provide health center personnel with practical information and tools for making reproductive health services more youth-friendly; to monitor and evaluate action plans; and to conduct a one-day follow-up workshop for participants to share lessons and strengthen skills.

Main Communication Strategies

The five-day training in both Burkina Faso and South America drew from existing curricula as well as new materials developed by the partners. The training methods were participatory in nature, and involved a variety of techniques, including group work, presentations by participants, role playing sessions, and brainstorming, among others.

This curriculum covers the following areas:

• Adolescent development and reproductive rights
• Adolescent reproductive and sexual health and influencing factors
• Information and service needs, with a focus on gender
• Characteristics of youth-friendly services
• Assessment of clinic services as to youth friendliness
• How to work with youth as partners
• National norms for adolescent care and services
• How to conduct a community needs assessment
• Action planning for more youth-friendly services and for evaluation.

Key Points

The Burkina Faso curriculum was pre-tested with 32 participants in September 2001. As a result of the training, which was designed for Francophone Africa, participant teams were able to make changes in their clinics, including changing service hours to better suit youth, designating space for consultations with youth, improving consultation space to ensure maximum privacy, training other clinic staff, and working in partnership with peer educators in the community. Although changes were not solely attributable to the youth-friendly services training and the technical assistance provided by Advocates for Youth, a survey conducted by the Pacific Institute for Women's Health for Advocates' community mobilization program in Burkina Faso revealed some advances in youth-friendly services provision between the fall of 2000 and June of 2002. For instance, 75 percent of the youth surveyed were aware of where they could obtain health services (as opposed to 62 percent at midline); 91 percent felt that the services were oriented toward youth (as opposed to 73 percent at midline). During a focus group discussion, one 19-year-old youth said, "… before, we were scared of going to the health centers because we felt ashamed but also because of the reception of the health center staff. But now it's even become our number one place to seek all that we want to know about sexuality and health."

Between May and July of 2002, the curriculum was tested in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia with a total of 120 health center personnel (40 participants per country). As a result of the training, 49 health centers have implemented plans of action. Key areas of focus include training other health center personnel (technical, professional and administrative) on how to be more youth-friendly; promoting peer education as a complementary strategy for reaching youth with reproductive heath information; promoting reproductive health services among youth; improving referral systems; and developing strategies for involving youth. Although 70 percent of the health centers have included youth to some degree in their work since the trainings, one of the greatest challenges cited by participants has been the meaningful integration of youth into the design, implementation, and evaluation of services. A project document is forthcoming that will provide practical tips, examples, and tools on how to implement more youth-friendly services, based on the experiences and lessons learned from the implementation of action plans in this region.

Partners

Advocates for Youth, Mwangaza Action, and IES, in collaboration with RIAS in Ecuador and Pathfinder International in Bolivia.

For More Information, Contact

Nicole Cheetham
Director, International Division
Advocates for Youth
2000 M Street NW, Suite 750
Washington, DC 20036
P: 202.419.3420
F: 202.419.1448
www.advocatesforyouth.org

For Burkina Faso,
Roger Thiombiano
President, Mwangaza Action
06 BP 9277
Ouagadougou 06, Burkina Faso
Phone: (226) 36 07 70
Fax: (226) 36 33 85
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For Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia,
Alicia Quintana
Instituto de Educación y Salud
República de Chile 641
Lima 11, Perú
Phone: (51) 1 433 6314
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This summary written by This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , consultant for The Communication Initiative, April 2003.