Welcoming and Accessible Environment Established
Youth-Friendly Practices
Adolescents value welcoming and accessible clinical environments, which can lead to improved sexual and reproductive health outcomes, higher rates of patient satisfaction, and increased use of contraception.
Strategies
Implementation Tips
- Expand clinic hours of operations to include evening and weekend hours
- Implement/extend walk-in hours
- Offer telehealth visits through video calls and other remote options
- Offer the option to schedule/confirm appointments via text message
Tools & Resources
Infographics for clinicians and scheduling staff showing adolescent sexual and reproductive health services that can be provided via telehealth
Infobrief about partnering with youth-serving organizations in the community to offer safe, secure, private, and technologically reliable telehealth sites for the provision of sexual and reproductive health services
Webpage that describes strategies for providing pediatric care through telehealth
Implementation Tips
- Use signage and language that is inclusive of and appealing to diverse adolescent patients (e.g., images of young people of different body types, ability/disability, same-sex couples, and race and ethnicity, as well as use of bright colors and graphics)
- Consider an adolescent waiting room separate from other pediatric patients and adult patients
- Provide a private area for adolescents to complete screening assessments confidentially
- Place white noise machines and dividers at reception to increase privacy
- Provide Wi-Fi, outlets, charging stations, and youth-friendly TV/magazines in the waiting room
- Provide healthy snacks since adolescents often come from school and may not have had a chance to eat anything
- Designate gender-neutral bathrooms
- Take advantage of virtual spaces—promote ASRH services on the health center website in a way that appeals to adolescent patients (e.g., interactive features, illustrated concepts, quick to navigate)
Tools & Resources
Video with ideas for ensuring youth-friendly spaces in primary care practices
Signage serving as a visual cue to welcome teen patients, for waiting or exam room
Recorded presentation on creating an adolescent-centered environment and providing youth-friendly care
Implementation Tips
- Train all staff (e.g., medical assistants, financial and front desk staff) on adolescent development
- Include ASRH health basics in onboarding training and/or compliance trainings
Tools & Resources
Chapter that covers promoting healthy sexual development from infancy through adolescence (Addresses LGBTQIA+ youth)
Podcast episode that discusses communication strategies and techniques that care team members can use to shape parent and adolescent understandings of development (starts at 00:19:10)
Podcast episode that covers adolescent brain development including implications for risky behavior and impulse control
Online training on how adolescent brain development impacts interactions between youth and adults in a clinical setting and resources for health centers and youth-serving organizations
Overview of adolescent sexual development on pages 9-12
Implementation Tips
- Offer training that increases capacity to implement culturally and linguistically appropriate services (services that are respectful of and responsive to individual cultural health beliefs and practices, preferred languages, health literacy levels, and communication needs)
- Provide trainings that address implicit bias (attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner)
- Train care team members on how to provide patient-centered care to LGBTQIA+ adolescents, youth with disabilities, and young men
- Offer trainings that increase awareness of racism and other forms of discrimination that unfairly disadvantage certain people and lead to social and health inequities; offer trainings that support care team members to promote racial justice, reduce health disparities, and advance health equity for youth
- Provide on-going trainings that focus on staff at different levels (e.g., care team member meetings, “all staff” meetings)
- Find community support if trainings cannot be offered in-house. There are many organizations and health care entities that have such offerings.
- Use scripts to ensure gender-inclusivity
Tools & Resources
Online resource for care team members on providing culturally responsive health care to adolescents
Website that provides health care professionals with information, continuing education opportunities, and resources to learn about and implement culturally and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS) and the National CLAS Standards
Online resource on how nonverbal communication impacts interactions between youth and adults in a clinical setting
Mindful Language Toolkit in Appendix D and Clinical Cases in Appendix E demonstrate stigmatizing and anti-biased language (Addresses racism or other forms of discrimination)
Online resource to help health centers provide patient-centered care for LGBTQ+ adolescents (Addresses LGBTQIA+ youth)
Glossary of terms relevant to the health care and identities of LGBTQIA+ people; also available in Spanish (Addresses LGBTQIA+ youth)
Online resource for care team members on how to better understand and support young people who have special health care needs
Fact sheet on sexual health care for youth with disabilities on pages 59-60 (Addresses racism or other forms of discrimination)
Recorded presentation for care team members on young men’s health from a social justice framework and how care team members can play a larger role in engagement; free registration required before being directed to video (Addresses male ASRH)
Recorded presentation with best practices and recommendations for the delivery of preventive sexual and reproductive health services for reproductive-aged males (Addresses male ASRH)
Addressing Racism in our Daily Interventions: Reclaiming the Right to Dream Big for ALL!
Recorded presentation on the internalization of racism by adolescents; free registration required before being directed to video (Addresses racism or other forms of discrimination)
Recorded presentation on the internalization of racism by adolescents; free registration required before being directed to video (Addresses racism or other forms of discrimination)
Online resource for key staff and providers on how to be youth-friendly and how to create a youth-friendly organization
Online resource on strengths-based approaches to address sexual health topics, including identifying strategies and opportunities to practice these approaches
Implementation Tips
- Ask questions about sexual orientation and gender identity and record the patient’s responses in the electronic health record. Questions can also be asked on paper and electronic patient registration forms.
Tools & Resources
Guide for collecting data on sexual orientation and gender identity; page 11 addresses considerations for children and adolescents (Addresses LGBTQIA+ youth)
Example EHR template for documenting sexual orientation and gender identity (Addresses LGBTQIA+ youth)
Implementation Tips
- When engaging youth, make sure events or meetings are interactive to increase engagement, responsive to youth needs, and diverse to ensure a broad representation of youth in the community (e.g., race and ethnicity, ability/disability, income level, age, gender, sexual orientation, language)
- Form a youth advisory council to help build relationships with the community, increase awareness of services, and increase understanding of youth perspectives
- Assess patient experience
Tools & Resources
Publication that describes the importance and benefits of youth-adult partnerships as well as elements of effective partnerships and guidance on how to engage young people in meaningful partnerships with adults
Manual on how to create and sustain youth advisory councils (YAC) including how and who to recruit, how to retain youth, and how to manage and strategically plan with a YAC; provides project ideas and examples and also provides other strategies for youth engagement
Toolkit with forms, templates, and tips that organizations can use to plan, conduct, and act on a youth listening session
Instructions and forms for conducting a youth-led assessment; contains both a facilitator guide and assessment packet; may need tailoring to specific practice settings
Recorded presentation that discusses the purpose and utility of youth-led health center assessments and provides guidance for implementation of youth-led assessment tools
Example patient experience surveys on pages 3 and 4
