Sarah Castle Consultancy

Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health

Challenges faced by adolescents across the world include early pregnancy and parenthood, difficulties accessing contraception and safe abortion together with high rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections. Socio-cultural taboos around pre-marital pregnancy create a demand for family planning among adolescents whilst, paradoxically, high levels of stigma often make it difficult for them to access. In addition, health workers may impede the delivery of quality care by failing to provide young people with supportive, non-judgmental services. In order to address these barriers, young people’s participation in designing youth-friendly programmes appears to be crucial.

January 2018 - Care, Boston, USA: Analysis (using SPSS software) of baseline, intervention and control data to assess the impact of AidMatch intervention to improve sexual and reproductive health services for young people in Goma town, Democratic Republic of Congo.

December 2016 - Marie Stopes International : Design of MSI’s Sahelian Youth Strategy using market segmentation profiles to better tailor family planning services for young people in Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Niger.

September 2016 - Palladium: In collaboration with the University of Cape Coast, I designed and executed an evaluation of Ghana Health Services' 'Youth Corners' initiative as part of the DFID-funded Ghana Adolescent Reproductive Health Project (GHARH) in the Brong Ahafo region. The Youth Corners were located within mainstream facilities to provide specialised 'youth-friendly' services. They successfully attracted young clients by making games ,TV and other leisure activities available.

January 2016 - The Palladium Group - Carried out scoping mission for DFID Mozambique on improving adolescent access to family planning services at the community level in areas with extremely high rates of early pregnancy and marriage, as well as widespread sexual violence.

August 2015 – InDevelop/SIDA (Sweden): A research brief on 'Comprehensive Sexuality Education' – its delivery, content and impact on young people’s sexual and reproductive health.

July 2015 - Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition: Position paper on youth and reproductive health and supplies. The paper explored how commodities and supply chains are influenced by young people’s sexual behavior and method preferences as well as by provider bias.

Documents

Youth and Reproductive Health Supplies

Adolescent Corners Situational Analysis