Positive Youth Development for HIV/AIDS and Sexual and Reproductive Health Programming: What Do We Know?
YouthPower Learning Systematic Review Webinar Series
When: Thursday, September 7, 2017 9–10:30 a.m. (ET)
Resources of the Webinar:
HIV AIDS and SRH webinar-final slides-9-7-17-2.pdf
PYD Measurement Toolkit Final-KP.pdf
Resource-Integrated-Workforce-Assessment-KP.pdf
Building the assets and skills of young people has been shown to improve outcomes for youth in high-income countries, but what does Positive Youth Development (PYD) look like in HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health programming in low and middle income countries (LMICs)? What is evidence of the effectiveness of a PYD approach in improving HIV/AIDS and SRH outcomes? How does PYD impact cross-sectoral outcomes?
This webinar, focused on HIV/AIDS and sexual reproductive health, builded upon sector-specific analysis from the recently released Systematic Review of Positive Youth Development in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.
Speakers
- Martie Skinner, Research Scientist, The Social Development Research Group, University of Washington
- Alice Welbourn, Founding Director, Salamander Trust, UK
- Andrew Gibbs, Senior Specialist Scientist at the Gender and Health Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council & Honorary Research Fellow, Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division [HEARD], University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
- Kate Plourde, Senior Technical Officer, Global Health Population and Nutrition Department, FHI 360
About the Webinar
Advancing youth health and well-being and promoting the active involvement of young people in social and economic development increasingly are priorities for many donors and development organizations taking a holistic approach to youth development. PYD is an approach that aims to build and support the competencies, skills, and abilities of youth so that they are empowered to reach their full potential.
PYD is a guiding principle of USAID’s Youth in Development Policy. Both a philosophy and an approach, it is a paradigm shift in how we understand young people and how we provide youth services. Based on YouthPower Learning’s Systematic Review of Positive Youth Development in Low- and Middle-income Countries, which examines implementation and evidence of PYD, the YouthPower Learning team has developed sector-specific briefs to deepen our understanding of what PYD approaches look like as they are applied to health, democracy and governance, and workforce readiness and employability.
Key takeaways explored during this webinar:
- Multiple complex issues face young people: initiatives need to embrace this complexity with positive, assets- and solution-focused multi-sectoral programs and outcomes.
- Economic interventions have better IPV and SRH outcomes when they integrate gender-transformative components.
- Change in social norms is possible, but it can take many years and demands considered investment in training, time and funding. The benefits of this investment may take many years—just as with car seat belts or public smoking.
- There are promising interventions, two of which will be discussed during this webinar, that work with young people to prevent intimate-partner violence and HIV-risk behavior.
About the Speakers
Dr. Martie Skinner is a sociologist who studies child, adolescent, and young-adult development with a focus on the influence of contextual factors on healthy and risky behavior. This includes studying the short- and long-term efficacy of interventions and programs designed to enhance positive youth development in the context of family, school, and community. Dr. Skinner received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Oregon and a PhD in sociology from the University of North Carolina. For the last 12 years, she has been conducting research at the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington.
Dr. Alice Welbourn is a writer, trainer, researcher, networker, and global advocacy activist on SRH&R in the context of VAW & HIV. She lived in Africa and worked on community gender and health initiatives there during most of the 1980s. She became a participatory learning approaches trainer in 1990. Dr. Welbourn is the author of Stepping Stones, a training package on gender, generation, HIV and relationship skills. Diagnosed with HIV in 1992, she served as Chair of the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS 2002-5; she was a member of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS Leadership Council in 2005. She is the Founding Director of Salamander Trust (2008 to present). 
Dr. Andrew Gibbs has been working for the past 10 years on topics related to gender, masculinity, health, and HIV/AIDS. He is currently working on the global DfID-funded What Works to Prevent Violence against Women and Girls? Global Programme, led by the South African Medical Research Council. In this role, he is the primary investigator of the Stepping Stones and Creating Futures randomized controlled trial in urban informal settlements in South Africa and co-investigator on the evaluation of the Women for Women International (WfWI) trial in Afghanistan. He is also involved in the evaluation of DREAMS in South Africa. 
Kate Plourde, MPH, is a Senior Technical Officer within the Global Health Population and Nutrition Department at FHI 360. Her work seeks to advance the evidence base for, and promote the implementation of, positive youth development approaches to advance the health and wellbeing of adolescents and youth, including girls and young women. She is a DrPH candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health and earned a Master of Public Health in International Health from Boston University.