SHE SOARS project for out of school adolescents and young women

Situation

Out-of-school adolescents face a lot of challenges in regards to their reproductive health and are often left out of traditional programs which are focused on Reproductive health.These adolescents dropped out of school because of a diverse number of reasons including teenage pregnancies, child early and forced marriages ,economic disempowerment leading to lack of school fees , gender and social norms among others.They often face stigma in accessing health services including Contraception,Antenatal clinics (ANC),and are unable to provide economically for their children and their livelihood.This necessitated the development of a comprehensive program that will create an enabling environment for them to access these services and integrating economic empowerment initiatives to empower them.The key stakeholders in this process were the adolescents and young women, community influencers which included their spouses,mother-in-laws,community leaders, parents, the ministry of health and development partners.

Assignment

The problem:The lack of an enabling environment for young mothers to access Reproductive and maternal health services. Design challenge:How might we design an innovative service delivery model that engages stakeholders in building a more conducive environment for young mothers to access reproductive and maternal health services? The Assignment:To conduct design research and generate insights for an inclusive and integrated service delivery model for adolescents and young mothers seeking RMNCH services.

Approach

The process followed a Human centered design approach to understand the situation, barriers and aspirations of different stakeholders and co-create solutions with them. Define and Ideate phase:The define stage involved in depth immersion and needs assessment, the process used tools eg focused group discussions ,intercepts and in-depth interviews to understand the problem from the adolescents, influencers,health management team and service providers perspective.The ideation stage involved gathering different ideas and co-create solutions to the issues raised. The prototype and test phase:This involved putting together the ideas generated into a product that can be implemented in the field ,the service delivery model was tested and reiterated by various stakeholders and refined. Implementation:This is the point of handover to the the client and how SHE SOARS-Role model girl groups were formed and implemented in different facilities.

Results

The Role model girl groups were formed as a result of these process.These were groups of 15-20 women who shared the same characteristics and met at a health facility near them to access a variety of services but the groups were meant to reduce stigma in accessing services.The groups were linked to a service provider and some interventions in the group included group ANC visits, Interpersonal therapy groups and their loanings and savings groups all in one sitting. The model also included a health system strengthening pillar which aimed at building capacity of healthcare workers to meet the needs of this particular group.This initiative in the long run has been taken up by county governments proving its scalability and sustainability ​

This project was commissioned by Care international Canada and performed by Mercy for the Centre for the Study of Adolescence (CSA). Mercy is also a member of the Proportion Global community. If you’ve enjoyed reading this case and want to dive deeper, we’d love to hear from you and we will connect you with the relevant designers like Mercy, who worked on this project Contact Us