The concept “youth-friendly services” have been being used for several years now by SRH programs but it is not always easy to capture what it is in practice. Too often, organizations embark on providing youth-friendly services as an additional activity to simply include on list of their program and don’t carefully explore their readiness to listen to young people’s complex and diverse voices in the matter. Program reports focus on the number of services provided and young people served, paying less attention to how friendly those young people were served. From my experience, interactions with my fellow young people, service providers and SRH experts, and review of existing literature on SRH I am happy to give the following advice for our services to be qualified as youth friendly.
- Empowering young people and giving them options for choices: Our services should not exclusively address needs of young people but also empower them to exercise and enjoy their rights. Limited options and lack of empowerment enforce young people’s vulnerability. Being rights-based means that services should support the overall development of young people, create a sense of entitlement, raise awareness on their rights, promote their participation, give freedom of expression, serve accountably and reach the underserved ones.
- Accepting young people’s sexuality: Our services and messages are often limited to only some aspects of sexuality such as abstinence, risk management or prevention of consequences of sex rather than openly exploring issues of sexuality in a broader way. The meaning of sexuality and sex vary according to young people. Our clinic clients vary widely and they include pregnant girls, HIV positives, heterosexuals, bisexuals, sexually active, sexually inexperienced, believers, etc. Focusing on only some options may be unhelpful to some of them. Service providers and communities should understand that young people are human beings and have sexual desires. In expressing their desires, some of them may engage in sexual activities, other may postpone it and the others may abstain. Drivers of having sex are not unintended pregnancies, but other factors such as love, economic reasons, and peer pressure. If we are to attack factors of sex we need to openly discuss all possible options of safer behaviors, including concerns in negotiation of safer sex and pleasure, and encourage responsible choices among young people.
- Responding to diverse realities of young people’s lives: Too often SRH services rely on what providers believe young people want and this results in them not trusting and feeling that they are there for their needs. Additionally, young people’s perceived need and knowledge of available services often remain low. Providers should be able to understand particular difficulties that young people face in accessing and using services, such as gender expectations that girls should not be sexually active, being treated with disrespect at health facility, concerns about confidentiality, fear of discrimination, affordability of services, etc. and create services that they trust. To be able to understand the realities of young people, it is important to create demand from the widest possible audience in their particular communities with a particular focus on the vulnerable, poor and minorities.
- Ensuring community support: The more an issue is raised as a community priority the more young people will feel comfortable to partner in finding solutions for it. Youth friendly services need to go beyond service delivery points to include community acceptance of young people’s sexuality and related services. Data on magnitude of unintended pregnancies can serve as a good starting point to mobilize community support.
When talking about youth-friendly services it is as important to look at their quantity as at the quality of their delivery. Despite youth-friendly services being context-specific, some standards are common such as being affordable, respecting confidentiality, giving choices, being demand-driven, not judging, and being provided by competent providers. It is important to partner with young people in order to know what the services mean for them and what they exactly want in them rather than relying on what providers think young people need.