Policies that support high-quality counseling, active follow up mechanisms, and access to the full complement of contraceptive methods are best practices for sustaining contraceptive use among youth who wish to prevent, space, or delay pregnancies. Countries should consider the following seven policy recommendations for increasing contraceptive continuation among youth:
- Elevate attention and resources to supporting existing family planning users while also promoting initiation among new users.
- Support youth access to the full range of family planning methods regardless of age, marital status, and parity, and without requiring the consent of a third party.
- Provide client-centered care in recognition of youth’s diverse reproductive health needs.
- Train and support providers to offer high-quality, supportive contraceptive counseling to youth.
- Strengthen youth’s ability to access contraceptives in the private and informal sector.
- Include a range of active follow-up mechanisms between appointments.
- Ensure that health care delivery points maintain the full complement of methods and advance distribution of self-administered methods.
Learn more about this topic in the full policy brief, available in English and French. Contact the PACE Project for a companion resource for youth advocates. Please reach out to Cathryn Streifel at cstreifel@prb.org with any questions or expressions of interest.
Join Knowledge SUCESS and FP2030 on April 29 at 7AM EDT for a session in the Connecting Conversation series to listen to Cathryn Streifel and other distinguished speakers share their perspectives on how health systems can continue to respond to young people as they grow and change.