• Integrated services

Integrated services

This Pathfinder International report shares successes and lessons learned from integrating youth-friendly services (YFS) into public health facilities in Tanzania. In this country young people are often prevented from accessing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services, and their SRH needs often fall through the cracks of many health and development plans and programmes. Integrating YFS into existing health facilities is seen as a way of overcoming this problem. The report highlights successes arising from integration. These include: strengthened capacity for national-level coordination of YFS; provision of services to youth where existing policy does not yet stipulate support for access; development of monitoring and evaluation tools and systems; strengthened management information systems (MIS).

The report concludes that it is possible to integrate youth-friendly SRH services into public health facilities. This is contrary to the popular perspective that non-governmental organisations are always better placed to offer youth-friendly SRH services. The report recommends that the government should provide funds for scaling-up the initiative and make use of existing technical capacities to scale-up initiatives to new sites. Integration of YFS should no longer be treated as a project, but rather as a routine service that is provided by the health facilities.

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