UNFPA supports the Youth Health Line (YHL), launched in 2012, as a nationwide, youth friendly health service to provide information and counseling for adolescents and youth on issues related to their health and reproductive health. The YHL is providing a vital service to young people around the coun...try who are dialing the toll-free number ‘120’ from any phone to speak to a professionally trained youth health counselor. These conversations are confidential, free of judgment, and do not require parental consent. The average reach of the YHL per year is 120,000 adolescents and youth served by full-time male and female counselors.
This Standard Operating Procedure for YHL provides a critical resource for the administration and day-to-day management. The SOP is designed to provide direction to all staff responsible for carrying out the administrative and managerial functions of the YHL. The SOP is intended to guide UNFPA Implementing Partners in running the YHL with a consistent approach to ensure improved access and quality of services provided to adolescents and youth in Afghanistan.
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UNFPA has been implementing programming for women and girls through Women Friendly Health Spaces (WFHSs), which provide access to critical services, information and support. The WFHS is providing: psychosocial counseling services; awareness raising sessions on PSS in the community; and life skills &... vocational training opportunities. The WFHS also facilitates referral to other services including Psychosocial Counseling Centers (PSCCs).
The aim of this guidance note is to provide an overview of approaches on how to successfully integrate adolescent and youth (A&Y) programming into the WFHSs. UNFPA activities for women’s and girl’s protection in health facilities aim to protect women and girls including child marriage. Given that vulnerable women and girls in Afghanistan continue to access health facilities, particularly for reproductive health and maternal health services, it is crucial to provide support for survivors in the same location to improve access to essential psychosocial and protection support for women and girls. To support the integration of A&Y in the WFHS programming each WFHS will be supported by two full time Youth Educators. A female Youth Educator who will be working within the WFHS and a male Youth Educator who will be working in the community. The role of the Youth educators is to increase A&Y awareness and knowledge on living healthy lifestyles and ensuring a referral system to services in existing facilities.
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The module is currently available in English, French, Nepali, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish
This Rapid Gender Analysis provides preliminary information and observations on the different needs, capacities and coping strategies of Venezuelan migrant and refugee women, men, boys, and girls in Colombia. It seeks to understand how gender roles and relations have changed as a result of the crisi...s and share recommendations for how the humanitarian community can more effectively consider these changing dynamics to better meet the different needs of women, men, boys and girls of different ages, abilities and other contextually relevant forms of diversity. The refugee and migrant crisis in Colombia is characterized by gendered dynamics and has taken a significant toll on the health and welfare on all those affected, but particularly on women and girls. Refugee and migrant women and girls face profound vulnerabilities as they leave Venezuela and either cross Colombia or stay in various locations across the country; this is even more the case for those at increased risk, such as indigenous populations, adolescent girls, etc.
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Development of one or more vaccines for Neisseria gonorrhoeae is an important objective for sexual and reproductive health worldwide, and for the fight against antimicrobial resistance.
WHO preferred product characteristics (PPCs) provide strategic guidance as to WHO’s preferences for new vacci...nes in priority disease areas. PPCs are intended to encourage innovation and development of vaccines for use in settings most relevant to the global unmet public health need.
Gonococcal vaccine PPCs describe global public health goals for gonococcal vaccines and preferred parameters pertaining to vaccine indications and target populations, safety and efficacy considerations, and immunization strategies.
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From 2000 to 2010, Rwanda implemented comprehensive health sector reforms to strengthen the public health system, with the aim of reducing maternal and newborn deaths in line with Millennium Development Goal 5, among many other improvements in national health. Based on a systematic review of the lit...erature, national policy documents and three Demographic & Health Surveys (2000, 2005 and 2010), this paper describes the reforms and the policies they were based on, and provides data on the extent of Rwanda’s progress in expanding the coverage of four key women’s health services. Progress took place in 2000–2005 and became more rapid after 2006, mostly in rural areas, when the national facility-based childbirth policy, performance-based financing, and community-based health insurance were scaled up. Between 2006 and 2010, the following increases in coverage took place as compared to 2000–2005, particularly in rural areas, where most poor women live: births with skilled attendance (77% increase vs. 26%), institutional delivery (146% increase vs. 8%), and contraceptive prevalence (351% increase vs. 150%). The primary factors in these improvements were increases in the health workforce and their skills, performance-based financing, community-based health insurance, and better leadership and governance. Further research is needed to determine the impact of these changes on health outcomes in women and children.
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Curricula and Educational Materials to
Help Young People Achieve Better Sexual
and Reproductive Health
Training On The Misp For Sexual And Reproductive Health In Crisis Part 2
How has the DRC Ebola outbreak impacted Sexual and Reproductive Health in North-Kivu?
Recommendations (more specifics found in the assessment):
1. Sexual and reproductive health needs and services are to be embedded in the EVD response from the outset.
2. Reduce delays at every stage of the patie...nt journey, particularly for women experiencing obstetric complications, including complications from abortion.
3. Support individuals and communities to mitigate SRH risks posed during and after EVD epidemic:
4. Formulate SRH guidelines for the EVD context involving experts in all relevant fields.
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Training Manual
Building on earlier EngenderHealth work in counseling, Counseling for Effective Use of Family Planning responds to an identified gap in existing materials and fills the needs expressed by those in the field. The intended audiences for this curriculum are health care providers, their... supervisors, and the managers of the programs in which they work. The counseling skills addressed here are expected to be relevant to the provision of both preventive and curative health services through the workshop participants’ national health systems. Finally, the curriculum’s participatory approach to defining terms and to generating profiles of potential clients is designed to assist trainees in addressing the realities and exploring the reproductive health priorities of their communities in a culturally appropriate manner.
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A practical toolkit for young people who are passionate about advancing HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights through national advocacy in the post-2015 agenda.
Recent increases in family planning (FP) use have been reported among women of reproductive age in union (WRAU) in Senegal. However, trends have not been monitored among harder-to-reach groups (including adolescents, unmarried and rural poor women), key to understanding whether FP progress is equita...ble. We combined data from six Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in Senegal between 1992/93 and 2014. We examined FP trends over time among WRAU and subgroups, and trends in knowledge of FP and intention to use among women with unmet need for FP. Our results show that percent demand satisfied is lower among rural poor women and adolescents than WRAU, although higher among unmarried women. Marked recent increases have been observed in all subgroups, however fewer than 50% of women in need of FP use modern contraception in Senegal. Knowledge of FP has risen steadily among women with unmet need; however, intention to use FP has remained stable at around 40% since 2005 for all groups except unmarried women (75% of whom intend to use). Significant progress in meeting the need for FP has been achieved in Senegal, but more needs to be done particularly to improve acceptability of FP, and to strategically target interventions toward adolescents and rural poor women.
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Translating Community Research Into Global Policy Reform For National Action: A Checklist For Community Engagement To Implement The WHO Consolidated Guideline On The Sexual And Reproductive Health And Rights Of Women Living With HIV
3rd edition | December 2018
This guideline provides health policy-makers and decision-makers in health professional training institutions with advice on the rationale for health-care providers’ use of counselling skills to address sexual health concerns in a primary health care setting
Gender-based violence is a life-threatening, global health and human rights issue that violates international human rights law and principles of gender equality. It is also a threat to lasting peace and an affront to our common humanity. United Nations Member States have called for urgent action to ...end GBV in emergencies, recognizing that in crises, the risk of GBV is heightened, particularly for women and adolescent girls.
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The articles in this compendium elaborate on some of the ideas shared at the symposium. Together, they provide a broad view of the dynamic interactions among physical, sexual and brain development that take place during adolescence. They highlight some of the risks to optimal development – includi...ng toxic stress, which can interfere with the formation of brain connections, and other vulnerabilities unique to the onset of puberty and independence. They also point to the opportunities for developing interventions that can build on earlier investments in child development – consolidating gains and even offsetting the effects of deficits and traumas experienced earlier in childhood.
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For the Fiscal Year 2015-2016, the Health Sector continued to implement actions meant to improve the availability, and access to quality healthcare. The following report highlights achievements registered by the health sector for the fiscal 2015-2016 in different health programs, as well as in the a...rea of health system strengthening.
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