Quality Assessment Guidebook

In many places, adolescents find it difficult to obtain the sexual and reproductive health services, and the other health services, that they need. To address this, there are a growing number of initiatives in many places which aim to make it easier for adolescents to obtain the health services they need, by making health services "adolescent friendly". These initiatives are being undertaken in a variety of settings--hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, youth centers, educational institutions, work places, shopping centres, camps for refugees and internally displaced people, and on the street. Non-government organizations are in the forefront of these efforts, although in a growing number of countries, governments are rising to the challenge.

The Quality Assessment Guidebook contains a framework which organizes twenty selected characteristics of adolescent friendliness. WHO has also developed methods and tools to assess whether health services meet these standards of quality.

The guidebook is designed to assist national and district health managers, as well as managers and staff at health facilities, to assess the quality of their services for adolescents in relation to the list of adolescent-friendly characteristics. Such assessments--from the perspectives of adolescent users and those of providers--will enable them to identify where their services and systems are already "adolescent-friendly" and will suggest where and how improvements could be made.