Youth Provision Research Articles

Primary healthcare and school health service utilisation by adolescents and young adults in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

BackgroundYoung people aged 10–24 years are a vulnerable group with poor health service access relative to other populations. Recent South African initiatives, the She Conquers campaign, the Integrated School Health Policy and the Adolescent & Youth Health Policy, include a focus on improving the breadth and quality of youth-friendly health service delivery. However, in some settings the provision and impact of scaled-up youth friendly health services has been limited indicating a gap between policy and implementation. In this study we reviewed existing sources of data on health service utilisation to answer the following question: ‘What health conditions do young people present with and what services do they receive at public health clinics, mobile clinics and school health services?’MethodsWe conducted a retrospective register review in three purposively selected primary healthcare clinics (PHCC), one mobile clinic, and one school health team in Hlabisa and Mtubatuba sub-districts of uMkhanyakude District, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The focus was service utilisation for any reason by 10–24 year olds. We also conducted descriptive analysis of pre-existing data on service utilisation by young people available from the District Health Information System for all 17 PHCC in the study sub-districts.ResultsThree quarters of 4121 recorded young person visits in the register review were by females, and 40% of all young person visits were by females aged 20–24 years. The most common presenting conditions were HIV-related, antenatal care, family planning, general non-specific complaints and respiratory problems (excluding TB). There were relatively few recorded consultations for other common conditions affecting young people such as mental health and nutritional problems. Antibiotics, antiretrovirals, contraceptives, vitamins/supplements, and analgesics were most commonly provided. Routine health registers recorded limited information, were often incomplete and/or inconsistent, and age was not routinely recorded.ConclusionsMeasuring morbidity and service provision are fundamental to informing policy and promoting responsive health systems. Efforts should be intensified to improve the quality and completeness of health registers, with attention to the documentation of important, and currently poorly documented, young people’s health issues such as mental health and nutrition.

‘We could be anything we wanted to be’: remembering Jimmy Rogers

Between 1967 and his death in 2018, Jimmy Rogers, a unique figure in the UK’s black self-help movement, dedicated himself to the welfare of black young people via basketball. Through Rogers’ own words and oral histories of individuals who knew him, this article traces his path from Liverpool 8, where he introduced organised basketball in 1967, to London, where he established the Brixton Topcats basketball club in response to the ‘riots’ of 1981. Rogers learnt through his own life of hardship – of being brought up ‘in care’ – the need for discipline, self-belief and self-reliance. And he used these experiences and his basketball skills to mentor generations of dispossessed young black men and later women, who found, through his clubs, an antidote to a world of institutional racism, economic hardships, and heavy-handed policing. At a time of drastic cuts in youth services, he showed the importance of alternative community-led youth provision to black working-class inner-city residents.

Stakeholder perceptions of relationships and sexuality education, backlash and health services in a rural town

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the provision of youth targeted Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) and sexual health interventions in the rural Australian context by examining the perspectives and experiences of a range of community stakeholders. Sixteen participants undertook one-on-one semi structured interviews. Four key themes emerged from the data and included: ‘you’re not going to get the whole town to start thinking about adolescent sexual health’; backlash, stigma and secrecy; being consistent, credible and available; and small-town communication. This study contributes to the limited literature about RSE and sexual health provision in regional and rural Australia and provides a voice for rural stakeholders who provide RSE and sexual health interventions by default or necessity. The findings of this study have practical implications for rural settings when addressing youth sexual health needs.

Docência no sistema penitenciário: o que as narrativas de professores revelam sobre a educação de adultos privados de liberdade

Este artigo procura demonstrar as especificidades da oferta de educação de jovens e adultos (EJA) em escolas inseridas em prisões, conforme previsto na Lei de Execução Penal (LEP), como uma das assistências necessárias para promover a integração social do apenado. O objetivo foi analisar a função docente a partir de narrativas de professores que lecionam em escolas inseridas no sistema penitenciário. Para isso, foram realizadas entrevistas com docentes de diferentes municípios do estado de Mato Grosso do Sul. Nesse contexto, a análise indicou que o professor(a), procura desempenhar suas atividades pedagógicas, imerso numa busca constante de atribuir novo significado ao papel que desenvolve.

The non-formal arts learning sector, youth provision, and paradox in the learning city

ABSTRACT The ‘learning city’ contains a range of non-formal learning economies. In recent years researchers have focused on, what has been termed, the non-formal arts learning sector, to document best practices, the emergence of new literacies and/or cultural practices, and to highlight interventions that support otherwise marginalised and underserved communities. Yet, for all of this attention, the non-formal learning sector has remained an opaque object, defined by hazy boundaries, diverse programme structures, and a presence in cities that is difficult to grasp. In this paper we develop an account of the non-formal arts learning sector for socially disadvantaged youth by treating it as a ‘socio-technical assemblage’ of the learning city. We draw on data from the Youthsites research project and examine the history, priorities, and tensions in the sector between 1995 and 2015, a period when the youth arts sector has become a significant feature of urban space. We trace the emergence of the sector in three global cities, analyse a series of paradoxes linked to income and property, the labelling of youth, and organisation aims, and show how these paradoxes shape the sector’s broader relationship with the state, labour and consumer markets, and related institutions that allocate support for young people.

The Nigerian juvenile justice system: from warehouse to uncertain quest for appropriate youth mental health service model.

Mental health service provision for youth within the juvenile justice system remains a topic of contemporary global discourse. To bring perspectives from under-resourced regions, we examine the current limitations of some globalised models for mental health services within the juvenile justice system in Nigeria. The important multi-systemic steps needed to reposition the system for modern mental health promotion and services are highlighted.

Leisure, Social Capital and Life Turns in Deviant Youth

The production of social capital in a specific area of everyday life such as leisure time and the different socio-cultural it is experienced in is a very interesting research issue, especially in the light of certain pecific meanings of the notion of social capital, such as Bourdieu's or, more recently, Putnam's. Nonetheless, this research issue is scarcely taken into consideration in Italy. Albeit inexaustively, this paper intends to introduce this issue starting from a brief review on the generation of social capital in youth's leisure time contexts. In the first paragraph I problematize the notion of social capital as referred to leisure time contexts as well as analyze either the social capital literature dealing with the modes and experiences of leisure time, or the leisure time literature focusing on the construction of social capital in leisure time contexts. In the second paragraph I discuss some studies regarding the ways in which a particular age range - youth - produces social capital in leisure time contexts. In the third paragraph I focus on some studies regarding the issue of youth's leisure time as a potential antisocial time. In the fourth paragraph I introduce the discussion about the little importance given to public leisure in the service provision for youth's leisure time and the consequences determined by that in terms of social capital erosion. The conclusion offers three metaphors for understanding the trends of leisure time and sociability

The Impact of Youth Self-Employment Behavior on Socio-Economic Development in Rwanda

This study aimed at examining the impact of youth self-employment behavior on socio-economic development in Rwanda specifically in Nyarugenge sector. It was conducted with the following specific objectives: To examine the youth self-employment behavior; to analyze the socio-economic impact of youth self-employment behavior; to evaluate challenges limiting self-employment behavior among the youth and to propose solutions to challenges facing the youth self-employment behavior in Nyarugenge sector. In order to carry out this study, different methods and techniques were used. The data were collected using questionnaire, interview, and documentation techniques. Results were collected from 96respondents selected from the entire population composing Nyarugenge sector using simple random and purposive Sampling techniques and the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results show that 98% have agreed that self-employment enables them to earn a living and 90.6% agreed that self-employment help to develop their economy while 87.5% of the agreed that this self-employment enable them to cater for the family needs. Secondly, the results indicated 100% of agreed that self-employment for the youth help to create new jobs and 100% agreed that self-employment enable people to improve their socio-economic status and encourages the saving culture as well as reducing the youth dependence to the government. Furthermore, results show that 100% confirmed that youth self-employment behavior increases the government revenues and 98% of the respondents have said that youth self-employment behavior reduces the government expenditure while 96.9% agreed that youth self-employed increases the competitiveness of the human capital. However, challenges weed identified such as lack of start-up capital, lack of training, commitment and creativity among some of the youth. On this, point the study has also proposed solutions such as provision of entrepreneurship training to the youth, provision of youth enterprises development fund and sensitizing the youth about self-employment behavior. Finally, recommendations were formulated to the youth such as increasing committed to start their own employments, gather in cooperatives in order to consolidate their efforts and be eligible to get loan opportunities and increase training and other learning opportunities in order to develop skills which are needed in self-employment. Finally, topics for future researches were suggested for instance to analyze the impact of youth forum on socio-economic development; examine the contribution of youth initiatives on eradication of youth delinquency and assess the role of the youth on socio-economic development.

The new youth sector assemblage: reforming youth provision through a finance capital imaginary

The language of austerity has been widely used to characterize policy-making in post-industrial nations since the financial crisis. Youth services in England are a noted example of the effects of austerity, having suffered rapid and severe cuts following a period of record investment prior to 2008. In this article, I argue that ‘austerity’ is an inadequate conceptual basis for critical analysis of policy-making since 2008, and that youth services are better understood as an exemplar case of the reforming effects of a ‘late neoliberal regime’. The late neoliberal regime describes a regulation of production through a finance capital imaginary, as distinct from the productive capital imaginary of the quasi-marketising neoliberal regime. I argue that late neoliberalism has effected the disassembly of quasi-marketised youth services and simultaneously the emergence of a new youth sector founded on norms of investment and return. I trace the reforming force of this regime through the productive relations of capital distributions, policy discourse, and organizational forms.

Parks and young people: An environmental justice study of park proximity, acreage, and quality in Denver, Colorado

Young people − including children and teenagers − are spending less time playing outside in nature than previous generations. This decrease is problematic, as parks can provide young people with physical and mental health benefits. Also, growing health disparities exist between white and ethnic minority young people in the U.S. These concerns motivate an investigation into access to parks for young people of different ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Although several recent studies have focused on park quality, no previous inquiry has employed a youth-centered framework to measure access, nor has used an index of park quality describing young people’s park needs. To address these gaps, I investigated access to parks in Denver, Colorado through a comprehensive geospatial approach − including park proximity, acreage, and quality − that models park and walkability features supporting frequent park use for children and teenagers. My findings show a multifaceted pattern of environmental injustice. Ethnic minority and low-income people have better access than other groups in terms of park proximity. High-income and white people, however, have access to significantly more acres of parks per youth, to more parks with excellent levels of quality, and to safer parks than other groups. The dramatic disparities in park safety might strongly limit park use among Denver’s low-income young people of color. This analytical framework can help park planners identify specific gaps in park provision for youth and develop strategies to address quality and acreage disparities.

Determinants of non-use of family planning methods by young married women (15-24 years) living in urban slums of Uttar Pradesh

Background: Total fertility rate of Uttar Pradesh is 2.7 with annual growth rate of 16.5. Age specific marital fertility rate (ASMFR) in Uttar Pradesh is highest in the age group of 20-24 years (383.9) followed by 15-19 years (271.0) age group. Use of contraceptives is also very low in this most productive age group. Among the Young married women in the age group of 15-24 years the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) is only 27.75% which is quite low than the target CPR of 60%. State level data presents a grim picture of contraceptive use in the slum areas in comparison to non-slum areas. This slum population is the most vulnerable section of our society. Aims & Objectives: i) To assess the prevalence of non-use of contraceptives among young married women living in urban slums. ii) To understand the reasons for non-use of contraceptives among young married women. iii) To explore the factors influencing non-use of contraceptive among young married women. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out in the urban slums of Lucknow. Out of the eight Nagar-Nigam zones in Lucknow, one Urban-Primary Health Centre was selected randomly from each zone. From each Urban- Primary Health Centre, 2 slums were selected randomly. In selected slum, all the households were visited until at least 33 young married women (15-24 years) were interviewed using a pre-tested questionnaire to obtain the desired sample size of 535. The data was analyzed using SPSS 16.0. Results: Current use of contraceptives was found to be 33.8 % and almost two-thirds (66.2%) of the participants were not using any form of contraceptive method. The important reasons for non-use of contraception were embarrassment / hesitancy / shyness regarding family planning, lack of knowledge about the contraceptive method or place of availability of services, opposition to contraceptive use by husband or family members and women’s desire to get pregnant. About one third of the women had no perceived need for contraception. Among the various bio-social and fertility related variables, educational attainment of the women, employment status, parity, autonomy of the women, attitude of the husband towards family planning, motivation to adopt contraceptive and contact with ANM during home visits were the prime independent predictors for non-use of contraceptives. Conclusion: The study found contraceptive use to be very low among the young married women. The findings showed that motivation of women to adopt family planning method through counseling along with provision of youth friendly services are needed to be address to achieve improvement in contraceptive use among these young married women living in urban slums.

Psychosocial health concerns among service-seeking orphans in the slums of Kampala

ABSTRACTOrphans have many unmet needs. The purpose of the current study is to briefly examine the psychosocial correlates linked to being an orphan among service-seeking youth in the slums of Kampala in order to provide guidance for service provision for youth. The current analysis is based on a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2011 which consisted of a convenience sample of youth living in the slums (ages 14–24 years) attending a drop-in center, Uganda Youth Development Link. Bivariate and multivariable analyses were used to determine psychosocial correlates with being an orphan. Among the youth participants (N = 444), 23.65% (n = 105) reported both of their parents died, 37.39% (n = 166) reported one parent died, and the remaining 38.96% (n = 173) reported both of their parents are living. In the multivariable model, reporting both parents dead was significantly associated with being a female (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 2.79, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.27, 6.12) and parental abuse (AOR: 0.14; 95% CI: 0.07, 0.27). A large percentage of youth living in the slums of Kampala are orphans. This study presents important findings that inform interventions and policies that can be targeted toward the dire needs of youth living in the streets and slums of Kampala.

Paving the Way to Change for Youth at the Gap between Child and Adolescent and Adult Mental Health Services.

By 2020 mental illness will be one of the 5 most common illnesses causing morbidity, mortality and disability among youth. At least 20% of Canadian youth have a psychiatric disorder the impact of which can dramatically alter their life trajectory. Focus on the factors contributing to this problem is crucial. Lack of coordination between child and adolescent mental health systems (CAMHS) and adult mental health systems (AMHS) and consequent disruption of care during this vulnerable time of transition is one such factor. Reasons for and the impact of this divide are multilayered, many of which are embedded in outdated, poorly informed approaches to care for this population in transition. This paper considers the etiology behind these reasons as potential foci for change. The paper also briefly outlines recent initiatives ongoing in Canada and internationally that reflect appreciation of these factors in the attempt to minimize the gap in service provision for youth in transition. The need to continue with research and program development endeavours for youth with mental illness whereby access to services and readiness for transition is no longer determined by age is strongly supported.

Availability and accessibility of public health services for adolescents and young people in South Africa

Against the background of increasing international calls for the development and implementation of age-appropriate programmes that address both quality and access issues to improve adolescent and youth health, this paper explores the extent to which public health facilities are available and accessible to adolescents and youth in South Africa. The impetus for the study was the current evidence that there was generally poor utilisation of services offered at public health facilities by young people in the country. The overall findings are that despite the country's comprehensive legal and policy framework and commitment to improve the health of young people, there continues to be some structural and systemic factors that hamper effective provision and programming of adolescent and youth friendly services. The paper concludes with recommendations for policy and practice.

VR Service Patterns and Employment Outcomes of Transition-Aged Youth

The purpose of this study was to descriptively explore the service provision of transition-aged youth in a state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agency and to determine if predictor variables could be identified for successful employment outcomes through logistic regression. At closure, more than half the participants were closed successfully in competitive employment. The majority were working in service, clerical and sales, or professional/technical/ managerial positions after receiving VR services focused on understanding the consumer's needs and creating appropriate plans, preparing for a job, obtaining a job and then retaining employment. Implications for transition and rehabilitation practice include the necessity o[specific transition-related training for VR counselors.

Foundations to spur youth services

Camden is latest to create a charitable foundation in a bid to increase capacity in voluntary youth provision

Employing a multilevel approach to examine contraceptive service provision for youth in New York City

In the United States, concerns about adolescent pregnancy and its purported consequences—negative health effects for mother and child, the disintegration of the nuclear family, and overdependence on public resources—began to widely circulate in policy spheres and the news media in the 1970s, resulting in a proliferation of policies, programs, and services designed to address its prevention. Though national adolescent birth rates are currently at their lowest since reaching a peak in the early 1990s, this decline masks persistent and significant disparities between groups of young people by race, ethnicity, geography, and poverty level, reflecting a complex intersection of social and economic inequities and diverse sociocultural meanings attached to adolescent childbearing. Using ethnographic methods, the research described in this article examines the values and priorities undergirding the promotion of hormonal and long‐acting reversible contraception for sexually active youth in New York City, an urban center of vast extremes in health, wealth, and opportunity, but which boasts extensive reproductive health services for young people, including confidential care and availability of free or low‐cost contraception. It examines the interpretation of this strategy from the perspectives of reproductive health leaders and health care workers, highlighting the ways in which adolescence, sexual risk, and youth relationships are characterized. It also describes the needs and priorities identified by these participants with regard to contraceptive counseling and reproductive decision making, contextualized by the experiences of youth participants for whom this strategy is intended, elucidating the broader sociocultural contexts in which young women negotiate intimate relationships and contraceptive use. The utility of multilevel and holistic approaches to the study of reproductive health services for youth is discussed, along with implications for clinical practice and policy development.

Youth minister calls for innovation over the ‘easy option’ of cuts

Minister for civil society Rob Wilson tells CYP Now that local authorities are “set in their ways” and have been too quick to cut youth provision instead of developing the evidence base to support service investment

‘Open-access youth work principles must be instilled into all services’

Increasing the contribution of volunteers and forming partnerships with other sector providers are two measures councils must develop if they are to make future youth provision available to all, says a leading academic

Understanding service provision and utilization for vulnerable youth: Evidence from multiple informants

Research has demonstrated that the ability of children to cope well with risk exposure can be partly attributed to the social ecology that surrounds them, including their access to resources. Few studies however have explored the interaction of services that many vulnerable children receive in relation to surrounding risks and available resources. This study reviews data of a paired sample of 166 Canadian multiple service using youth (at least using two of five public service systems) and a youth-nominated person most knowledgeable (PMK) focused on the contextual risk factors, service use variables, and pscychosocial outcomes of youth participants. Despite low to moderate correlations between youth and PMK (the person who is most knowledgeable about youth's lives) reports, findings showed that both PMKs and youth perceive service provision as a mediator between risk and pscychosocial outcomes. For youth however, better quality of service provision is key to improved developmental outcomes. Furthermore, the more risk factors youth face at home and at school, the less likely they are to perceive their services as helpful or appropriate to their needs. Youth data also reflects far more complex interactions between risks, service provision and outcomes than PMK data. Greater sensitivity is needed to both an adult and youth's perceptions of risk and related service needs if service access is to be provided optimally.