Family & Community Health (FCH)

National Consultation on Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health in RCH-II: Development of

Standards and Operational Guidelines

New Delhi: 2^nd- 5^th September 2005

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) Government of India (GOI), WHO and UNFPA organized a “National Consultation for Developing Standards of Quality and Operational Guidelines” for delivering Adolescent Friendly Health Services at the district and sub-district levels, from 2-5 September 2005 at New Delhi.

A technical strategy on Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health (ARSH) is now included in the National Reproductive and Child Health Phase-II (RCH-II) Programme Implementation Plan (PIP).  At the state level, a technical component on adolescent health has been included in the state PIPs with the incremental support for piloting these initiatives in 75 districts of the country.

This workshop was the logical step towards systematically mapping out how this ARSH strategy would be operationalized with built in standards of quality of services. The context was clearly RCH-II and the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) of GOI.

The workshop was inaugurated by the Secretary Health and Family Welfare, GOI, Mr P K Hota who delivered the key note address. Dr. Salim J Habayeb, WHO Representative to India and Dr. Hendrik van der Pol, the country representative of UNFPA gave opening remarks.

Senior government officials such as the Joint Secretary Education, Representatives from Women and Child

Development and Team Leader of NACP-III from National AIDS Control Programme (NACP)-III also came during the workshop to share their views on ways to collaborate with the department of health and family welfare on issues of adolescent health.

The participants were an interesting and varied group consisting of secretaries, joint secretaries, and directors from selected states, professionals from Voluntary Organizations with experience of implementing adolescent friendly health services, members of medical associations such as the Indian Association of Pediatrics, Federation of Gynecologists of India, Indian Medical Association etc, and professionals from Development Partners.

The Adolescent Friendly Health Centers supported by WHO, India and GOI at the 14 sites across India and some other agencies working with adolescents, shared their experiences through a poster exhibition which was displayed throughout the workshop. The lessons learnt from the AFHCs were a timely input for implementing the RCH-II ASRH strategy.

The workshop used a mix of participatory methods. After introductory sessions on the first day the next two days were spent in intensive group work for framing the standards and operational guidelines.

Resource persons for the workshop were experts from the WHO headquarters, the regional office and the country offices of WHO, the regional and country offices of UNFPA and the MOHFW.

The outcome of the workshop was:

      Clear statements of Standards of quality  of services which the programme will aspire to achieve

      Operational Guidelines for implementing Adolescent friendly reproductive and sexual health services at the district level. This includes the package of services, service providers and the strategy for capacity building, communication strategy with various stakeholders and monitoring and evaluation framework with specific tools to assess service quality at each facet of implementation.

These standards and operational guidelines will provide a road map to the states to implement ARSH services in selected districts with enough flexibility for the states to adapt the guidelines to the field situation.

A small writing group shall be working further on refining the standards and working further on the draft of the operational guidelines incorporating all the inputs provided during the workshop deliberations. This draft will be shared with all states and other stake holders in a larger consultative meeting.