Field Notes: Peer Educator Retention Strategy
Peer education is a proven, effective method for affecting behavior change by moving individuals from basic awareness to discussing their beliefs and values, especially through participatory activities. However, most peer education programs
use volunteers, who are quick to start up activities but also quick to drop out. Finding ways to motivate and retain peer educators is a challenge shared by peer education programs everywhere. This FieldNotes highlights some of the innovative ways that the International Youth Foundation and its partner organizations around the world are using to not only recruit peer educators but also to keep them actively committed to their important work.
Family Planning, HIV/AIDS &, and Gender Matrix: A Tool for Youth Reproductive Health Programming
The purpose of the matrix is to provide youth-serving organizations with a guide of topics on family planning, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and gender; segmenting them by age and marital status.
The matrix can assist technical experts, program managers, health providers, peer educators and others to determine what topics and interventions best fit into their own respective programs while taking cultural paradigms into consideration.
The tool can be applied in any setting or program serving youth such as schools, outreach and peer education programs, community-based youth services or youth-friendly clinics.
A Framework for Integrating Reproductive Health and Family Planning into Youth Development Programs:
Positive youth-focused programs, combined with reproductive health information and services, can motivate youth to postpone sexual activity and practice safer sexual behavior. Evidence demonstrates that positive youth reproductive health outcomes are closely linked with educational and economic opportunities. The framework identifies guiding principles for integration of reproductive health, key programmatic elements and a organizational self-assessment tool.
Youth Reproductive Health Fact Sheets:
Click here for more youth reproductive health resources and tools.
To learn more about IYF's Health Education initiatives click here. |
