Frequently asked questions

The Adolescent Kit for Expression and Innovation is for anyone who is designing, leading or working in programmes for adolescents ages 10-18.

The resources in the Kit are intended for use in humanitarian programmes, responding to crises such as war, violent conflict, natural disasters and displacement. They can also be used in development contexts and low-resource settings, and as part of initiatives that contribute to peacebuilding. These might include child protection, psychosocial support, non-formal education, social engagement, arts, recreation or sport programmes, youth clubs or organizations.

The approaches and activities in the Kit are designed to reach and engage adolescents ages 10-18, recognizing the particular challenges this age group faces in humanitarian situations and the gap in programming to support them.

That said, the approaches and activities offered in the Kit can be adapted and used with younger children as well as older youth, for programmes and interventions addressed to those age groups.

Yes. The approaches and activities in the Kit are appropriate for adolescent girls and boys, adolescents with and without disabilities, adolescents from different religious and cultural backgrounds, and adolescents who are and are not literate. All the guidance materials offer recommendations for how to use the approaches, activities and materials in ways that equitably reach and support adolescents in all of those categories.

All resources in the Kit are designed for use with adolescents at different levels of maturity, with different interests and priorities, and in different contexts. The guidance, tools and activities include suggestions and recommendations to support these adaptations.

Yes! All resources in the Kit, especially the guidance and tools, include information and recommendations to support programme coordinators and facilitators in ensuring that adolescents with disabilities are reached and fully included in all activities, and enjoy their benefits equally to, and together with, adolescents without disabilities.

The Activity guides were designed to be accessible for adolescents with different types of disabilities, and also offer adaptations to make them even more inclusive. The Supply Kit, too, was designed with features to accommodate adolescents with cognitive, sensory and mobility disabilities.

Find out more in the guide on adolescents with disabilities.

Yes! All Adolescent Kit activities, guides and tools are available in English, Arabic, French, Spanish, and Farsi and you can find them in the Activity Box. You will also find some other selected and adapted materials from the Adolescent Kit in Italian, Thai, Ukrainian as you browse the Country Profiles pages linked at the bottom of the Kit in Action and Adapted resources and publications pages.

UNICEF also has guidance and resources to support programme teams wishing to translate the Adolescent Kit into new languages. Those resources include text-only versions of the Adolescent Kit guides, tools and activities for use by translators. Design files (INDD format) are included, which graphic designers can use with translated text to recreate new guides, tools and activities using the same design, color scheme, fonts and icons as the original Adolescent Kit. If you are considering translating the Adolescent Kit into a new language, contact us for access to the resources.

No permission is needed!

Anyone working with adolescents – whether in humanitarian response programmes or any other contexts or circumstances – is welcome and encouraged to use the Adolescent Kit guides, tools and activities available on this website. These resources are designed to be adapted, and you may adjust and integrate them into your programmes based on what will work best in your context.

We hope you will consider sharing updates and feedback with UNICEF so we can learn from your experience as we continue to develop and upgrade the Kit. Please contact us updates, questions and news!

Read the Supplies page to learn more about the Supply Kit and how UNICEF staff and in some cases their partners can procure it from UNICEF’s global supply catalogue. The Supplies page also provides information for how to determine whether you may want to procure the Supply Kit and how many you should order if you do. You will also find guidance on how to build a supply kit locally, and/or to procure other supplies you may need for the programme activities you are planning for adolescents.

You can also find more information and guidance in these videos, Introduction to the Adolescent Kit Supply Kit and Build a supply kit locally.

No! The activities and approaches in the Adolescent Kit are designed for use with simple and widely available resources that can usually be procured locally – pens, pencils, markers, paper, locally found materials. Some activities do not require any materials at all or can easily be adapted for use with various materials.

The Supplies page provides tools and checklists for you to create your own kit if you can procure some basic supplies locally. You can also learn more about build your own supply kit locally, and/or procure the supplies you need, from this video, Build a supply kit locally.

Not necessarily. Like any toolkit, the Adolescent Kit is intended to be flexible, so you can choose and use the resources you find most valuable or relevant for your programmes, to effectively work with and for adolescents toward your goals.

As you review all of the Adolescent Kit resources, please take note of the approaches and guidance that are most strongly recommended, especially to ensure that adolescents’ human rights to protection, education and participation are upheld through your programme or intervention. For example, it is especially important to ensure that you are prepared to connect adolescents with support when their safety is at risk. Learn more about how to build a safe, supportive programme for adolescents by reading about the Adolescent Kit’s Ten Key Approaches for working with and for adolescents.

Yes! The Adolescent Kit includes much of the guidance, tools and activities (and supplies) you may need to start a new programme. But all the resources can also be used in an ongoing programme, together with the other plans, guides and manuals already in use.

Learn more about how different UNICEF Country Offices have integrated the Adolescent Kit into ongoing programmes, institutions and systems for adolescents by browsing the country profiles linked on the Kit in action page. 

No, it is a programme toolkit - a package of guidance, tools and supplies that can be used in different types of programmes for adolescents to make them more effective and impactful for adolescents. It can be used to catalyze new programmes or to strengthen ongoing programmes, especially with and for adolescents affected by conflicts and disasters.

As with any ‘toolkit’, programme staff should pick and choose the tools, guidance and supplies they will find most helpful in building or strengthening their programmes. As you review all of the Adolescent Kit resources, please take note of the approaches and guidance that are most strongly recommended, especially to ensure that adolescents’ human rights to protection, education and participation are upheld through your programme or intervention. For example, it is especially important to ensure that you are prepared to connect adolescents with support when their safety is at risk. Learn more about how to build a safe, supportive programme for adolescents by reading about the Adolescent Kit’s Ten key approaches for working with and for adolescents.

The Adolescent Kit is designed as a cross sectoral resource that supports adolescents’ mental health and psychosocial wellbeing, their development of essential, transferable life skills, and their active and positive participation and engagement in their communities. It can be and has been used in programmes and contexts that include clubs and youth centers, schools, nonformal education programmes, child protection interventions, peacebuilding and advocacy initiatives, and youth action and engagement.

Read Decide how to use the Adolescent Kit to learn more about the various programme entry points for introducing and using the Kit, or browse The Kit in action country profiles to learn more from examples of where and how the Kit has been used with and for adolescents in different circumstances around the world.

Yes! The Adolescent Kit can be and has been used together with curricula, toolkits and other resources that support their learning about topics such as financial literacy, sexual and reproductive health and climate change, and their engagement in issues such as peacebuilding advocacy, human rights and equity, and disaster risk reduction.

Yes. The first two sections of Programme Coordination resources include guidance and tools for use in setting programme goals that address adolescents’ development and their acquisition of the Ten key competencies, and in measuring their progress toward those goals. Throughout the Programme Coordinators’ guidance you will find other tools for monitoring programme activities and implementation.

The Facilitation resources section on Choosing an activity phase for your adolescent circle, and the activity Setting group goals in the Activity box, also offer guidance for participatory processes that facilitators can use with adolescents to set their own wellbeing, learning and action goals, and to collaborate in assessing their own progress toward those goals.

Another useful resource for monitoring and evaluation tools is the Adolescents as peacebuilders toolkit, developed to complement the Adolescent Kit and using the same framework Ten key competencies. The Toolkit includes guides and tools for setting programme goals focused on those competencies and measuring adolescents’ progress in developing and using them. Like the Adolescent Kit, it emphasizes participatory processes for collaborating with adolescents in setting and measuring progress toward goals.

Like all the resources in the Adolescent Kit, the guidance and tools above can be adapted for use with programmes designed in the field. Since the Adolescent Kit was designed to catalyze or strengthen a range of different kinds of programmes, there is not one universal M&E framework for use with it. Browse the country profiles, or contact us for examples of M&E tools and frameworks developed by other UNICEF country offices using the Adolescent Kit in their contexts.

Yes. Find suggestions for how to plan programmes for sustainability, especially by preparing for programmes to transition into new phases, or to end, when the time is right on the Plan for a programme to transition guide, and learn more from practice from the examples in the Kit in action country profiles.

The Adolescent Kit is designed for use in programmes led by humanitarian professionals who are trained in United Nations’ and Inter-Agency Standing Committees’ global standards, principles and best practices for humanitarian interventions, and should be implemented in programmes that uphold and implement those standards, principles and practices. Guides and tools for activities for facilitators are designed for professionals or volunteers who have received basic training in participatory facilitation or teaching practices. 

Some programme teams who are trained in those practices find they are able to use and adapt the guidance, tools, activities and supplies to catalyse new initiatives or strengthen ongoing programmes without additional training or technical support from UNICEF. Others have found it helpful to seek technical support as they get started.

As a first step to determine whether you want or need additional training support, read the Decide how to use the kit page. Explore the Training resources page to find a training package for use and adaptation by programme leaders with their teams. The package includes a ‘training of trainers’ curriculum guide and corresponding PowerPoint presentations.

The Adolescent Development and Participation section of UNICEF can recommend experienced trainers to work directly with UNICEF country offices or other organizations on a consultancy basis. Contact us to learn more about training resources that are available or forthcoming, and/or to request support.

There is no standard timeline for using the Adolescent Kit. You can choose and adapt all resources in the Kit to address your programme goals and priorities, and the situations, circumstances, needs and interests of the adolescents with whom you work.

With that in mind, timelines usually depend on the context and purpose of interventions using the Kit – for example, whether it’s used in new-onset humanitarian situations, protracted emergencies, development contexts, or settings in which adolescents’ situations are uncertain or in flux. Read the Activity phases page of this website for recommendations for how to plan sequences of activities for adolescents in different situations, and with different developmental capacities and interests. Browse other programme coordination resources and facilitation resources to learn more about how plan a programme that will work best in your context.

All resources in the Kit were designed to support UNICEF programme teams and partners in working with adolescents. They can also be used by other professionals and volunteers who work with and for adolescents, including teachers, counselors, social workers, coaches, and club leaders. All of the materials in the Adolescent Kit are designed for use in programmes led by humanitarian professionals who are trained in United Nations’ and Inter-Agency Standing Committees’ global standards, principles and best practices for humanitarian interventions, and should be implemented in programmes that uphold and implement those standards, principles and practices.

In some cases, adolescents may be able to use some of them with minimal support from facilitators or other adults. For example:

• Groups of adolescents working together in or outside a structured programme could use many of the activity guides, to suggest possible projects to work on together.
• Mature youth organizations or clubs with a high capacity for independence could use any of the resources in the Kit to strengthen or expand their work together.
• Adolescents can take responsibility for managing the supplies. The Supply Kit was designed so that adolescents can assemble the carriers and storage pods, which are also lightweight and small enough for most adolescents to carry them.

But keep in mind that adolescents ages 10-18 are still children. While many may have the capacity, energy and will to undertake initiatives independently, all adolescents need (and have a right to) protection and support from adults – especially adolescents living in challenging circumstances and recovering from difficult experiences.

With that caveat in mind, UNICEF is excited to consider creating new resources to include in the Kit that are designed especially for adolescents and youth to use themselves. Contact us if you have ideas. We especially welcome suggestions from young people!!

Please visit our Contact us page for our contact details. We would love to hear from you!