Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
Global Reach for AdolescentsThrough our global programs and research, Save the Children is contributing to improved sexual and reproductive health (SRH) for adolescents:
Addressing The Complexities Of Adolescents' Sexual Development
Adolescence is one of life's most complex stages, when young people take on new responsibilities and experiment with independence. When engaged and supported, adolescents thrive and contribute to communities and families.
When encouraged, they have the potential to change negative social norms and pave a brighter future for themselves and their future families. Yet as adolescents around the world enter puberty, taboos, discomfort and fear prevent parents and other trusted adults from teaching relevant information to help adolescents navigate the complexities of their emerging sexuality.
Global and national health indicators highlight the need to have a greater focus on adolescents. Complications from pregnancy, childbirth, and unsafe abortion are a leading cause of death for young women aged 15 to 19. When girls give birth before age18,there is also increased risk of death and disability to her newborn. Adolescents have one of the highest rates of unmet need for family planning. Young people are at high risk for contracting HIV with 40% of all new HIV infections occurring in 15 to 24 year olds. Sexual violence among adolescents, especially in humanitarian emergencies, also continues to pose significant risks to adolescents. Yet adolescents typically do not have access to high quality sexual and reproductive health information and services.
Save the Children's success in adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) programming lies in adopting evidence -based interventions which are designed to suit local social and cultural norms. Our global ASRH programs span the reproductive health lifecycle, with special attention to the needs of very young adolescents (ages 10 to 14), preventing early pregnancy, and addressing the needs of young mothers, who typically lack access to sexual reproductive health (SRH) services. Save the Children is also actively engaged in efforts to make ASRH information and services a routine part of the service delivery package in emergency settings — a critical and neglected gap in most emergencies. Moreover, our work is enhanced by addressing the gender and social norms that create barriers to SRH information and services for adolescents, leading to poor SRH outcomes.
Our Adolescent Sexual And Reproductive Health Focus Areas
By 2012, with continued financial support from UNFPA, Save the Children began actively advocating for inclusion of ASRH programming in emergencies and maintained global capacity strengthening efforts. Trainings provided knowledge, skills and tools to recognize adolescents’ needs and specifically address ASRH concerns in Save the Children’s humanitarian response efforts. To lead this initiative, a new position was created: Emergency Adolescent Reproductive Health Specialist. The Specialist is deployed to emergency settings to ensure Save the Children delivers an adolescent-inclusive emergency response, integrating ASRH into other sectoral programming, including child protection, education and livelihoods. Since 2012, the Specialist has been actively involved in responding to the regional Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon and Jordan.
Save the Children is an emerging global leader in the health of very young adolescents. Almost invisible from global health programs, we focus on this age group through the following strategies: ensuring access to comprehensive sexuality education, strengthening menstrual hygiene management, delaying early marriage, improving access to health services, strengthening protective factors, such as communication with parents, and supporting the formation of positive gender norms. This compilation of program strategies fills a critical information and service gap and equips younger adolescents with the ability to navigate the challenges and opportunities during their transition through puberty.
Although young people may not be thinking of planning their families, they are thinking about planning their lives and how to achieve their hopes and dreams. Comprehensive sexuality education and contraception is part of this life planning and adolescents need the knowledge and skills to delay and space pregnancies as they become sexually active and plan their futures. Save the Children has integrated family planning programming capacity within its long term programming for young people to ensure this key need is sustained in our work. Save the Children focuses on clinic and community based strategies to increase access to contraception for unmarried as well as married girls and boys, as well as access to comprehensive sexuality education through schools and community groups.
Save the Children's hallmark Partnership Defined Quality for Youth (PDQ-Y) approach engages youth and health service providers in jointly defining barriers to quality adolescent health services, and empowers youth and providers to work together to implement innovative and feasible solutions.
Our Global Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Reach
Last Updated July 2015