What Are The Youth Health Services?

What Are The Youth Health Services?

What are Youth health services

These are  specific youth  health services based in a location, and they may focus on particular health issues affecting young people, or may work on young people’s general health:

  • Peer education health projects such as anti-smoking and HIV/AIDS campaigns
  • Youth health action projects
  • Youth counseling projects
  • Clinics for children’s health and drop-in programs to help families plan their family 
  • Young women’s health advice centers
  • Youth disability projects
  • Units, wards and services designated for the treatment of young people.

The health of a nation’s youth is determined by the way that different strata of young people fit into that nation’s social structure, with the poorest groups suffering the most ill-health, This is in turn influenced by the structure of the social and economic global system, for example, a country like Sri Lanka, which developed a degree of prosperity with textiles and other related industries, faced the loss of jobs for thousands of textile workers when the Multi-fibre Arrangement came to an end in 2005 and removed the protected market share, Unless the textiles industry in these countries can create new niche markets, for high-quality expensive textiles, then that will create new areas of poverty, which as we said earlier is statistically damaging to the health of the poor, Their governments will need to redress that problem through public health measures,  In order for youth development workers to be able to work in the same direction as the progressive forces in a given social system, rather than struggling against them, it is important that they first determine what the possible linkages between youth development activities and the local systems of public health are. This will help them to play a role in youth health services.

While most countries in the world are increasingly adopting the primary health care approach, the management of health education and promotion varies greatly from region to region, depending on the local culture and the political and economic structure of a region, as well as on the health and disease patterns and local primary health care policies.

The Commonwealth Youth Program suggests that an analysis of health provision in a specific situation should begin with the consideration of three factors:

  • Whether health services for young people exist inside a service specifically allocated to health, such as a health center or a drug unit, or happen to be located within broader community development services, such as the criminal justice system or education
  • Whether the service in question is being used by young people alone or by the population in general
  • Whether the service in question is a specialist service, for example relevant to smoking or sexually transmitted diseases, or whether it has a broader (more holistic) emphasis, being concerned with the wider context of young people’s health.

It is therefore important for you to know the way in which the local health service fits into these broad groupings, as youth development workers need to mobilize aspects of these services to meet identified needs. It is essential to be aware of how each service is run, as well as its organizational objectives and how each service varies according to the way it is located in the general system. Now let’s look at the various categories of services for young men and women.

 

Categories of services

The Commonwealth Youth Program further describes four categories of service for young men and women:

  • Youth development services
  • Youth health services
  • General health services
  • Community development services.

 

Youth development services 

As you may know from your own experience, these are not normally a part of specific health-centered services, as they tend to deal with more general matters to do with young people. They aim to develop the social and personal lives of young people and to serve vulnerable groups of young people. They provide a range of services available in one location, including the following:

  • Youth councils
  • Multipurpose youth centers – recreation, primary health care, advice on reproductive health; skills training
  • ‘Youth for youth’ and ‘peer education’ projects
  • Youth task forces
  • ‘Youth sport for health’
  • Life-skills and health education projects (in-school)
  • Out-of-school and unattached youth projects, such as enterprise schemes
  • Youth homelessness projects
  • Outreach work

 

General health services

These are services designed to be used by all age groups within a population. They may focus on particular issues or vulnerable groups, or provide a general health service in one location:

  • Community health clinics
  • Hospitals
  • Psychiatric units
  • Health education and promotion projects
  • Marriage guidance
  • Health professionals such as doctors and nurses
  • General anti-smoking campaigns.

 

Community development services 

Community development services are general services outside the specific health service that young people may use. They work with vulnerable groups of people to develop particular aspects of their lives, or they may aim to work with people generally and to provide a complete range of services in one location:

  • Community centers
  • Community theatre groups
  • Anti-poverty projects
  • Nutrition projects
  • Women’s health projects
  • Enterprise schemes
  • Adult education projects
  • Literacy schemes
  • Environmental health services
  • Drug users’ rehabilitation community projects.

 

The role of young people in health

In this section we will look at how youths can be empowered with knowledge and skills to assume more responsibilities in managing their own health needs and improving their quality of  life. However, many programmes for youths tend to consider them as passive, not active participants.

In general, youth programs do not make enough effort to stimulate participation of the young people in the planning, decision-making, policy development, monitoring and evaluation of programmes designed for them.

Sometimes youths are symbolically involved in the activities that are targeting them. An example of the symbolic involvement of young people is the common practice of inviting one or two youths to a large national and/or regional conference or workshop where adults are discussing important youth-related issues, or where findings about research conducted on youths, without their participation, are being discussed.

 

Why involve young people? 

Young people should be a solution to local and global health problems that impact them and their communities. Their role as agents of change in promoting health and development enhances their competencies.

Both youth development work and primary health care aim to empower people. It is therefore essential that young people participate in primary health care projects. We need to listen to the views of young people, and use their insights and energy to make projects relevant and of a style that they will respond to positively.

 

Dr. M Macwan’gi

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