Guide: Investigate adolescents’ situations

As a first step, try to find out who the adolescents are in your area and where they can be found. This may include adolescents of different ages, ethnicity, clan, language, sexual orientation and religion, and those with disabilities. In particular, try to identify the most vulnerable adolescent girls and boys, who are typically overlooked in programmes and need support the most.

Try to obtain the strongest demographic profile possible of adolescents in your community, calculating the overall number of adolescents, as well as the number of adolescent girls and boys from different ethnic, language, religious and other backgrounds. This will help you to set enrolment targets for your intervention with the Adolescent Kit, and to reach those most in need of support.

Consider whether adolescents are in the first few weeks of a crisis, undergoing a longer-term humanitarian emergency situation (such as ongoing displacement within a refugee or IDP camp), experiencing a conflict, or living in a fairly permanent and stable development context.

The type of humanitarian context, anticipated duration of adolescents’ displacement, and the prospects for recovery can affect how you design and run your intervention with the Adolescent Kit. It’s also important to bear in mind that adolescents’ circumstances can change rapidly in humanitarian settings – and that it is likely that you will have to adapt your intervention in response to those changes.

Refer to the Adapting to the humanitarian context tool to understand how different humanitarian circumstances may affect activities and approaches with adolescents.

Find out what is happening in adolescent girls’ and boys’ lives and use this information to design an intervention that helps them to cope with their challenges and build on opportunities in their environments.

Adolescents may face unique challenges in humanitarian situations. These could include disruption to their communities, interruption to their education and separation from their families, exploitative labour, child marriage, violence and abuse, or recruitment into fighting forces. Adolescents may live in over-crowded, unsanitary conditions, and lack basic food, health, security and other services. Adolescents may be bored and idle, lacking opportunities to go to school or support themselves and their families, or they may be overwhelmed and burdened with adult responsibilities such as work, child care and domestic chores that make it difficult for them to participate in programmes intended for them. They may feel frustrated, discouraged, frightened or anxious about the future. Like adolescents everywhere, they may also be concerned about their friendships, families, romantic relationships and futures.

Refer to the Exploring challenges and opportunities tool

Try to get a sense of adolescents’ family situations, and their roles and responsibilities at home. Many adolescents may take on new roles in humanitarian situations, such as heading households, minding siblings, working, and becoming parents themselves. These new roles have implications for the type of activities with the Adolescent Kit that may be relevant to adolescents’ needs and interests, as well as for the time they may have available to participate in interventions.

Investigate how adolescent girls and boys spend their days, where they go, and what they do. Adolescents’ daily lives may leave them with long periods of the day when they are unoccupied and unsupervised, or their days may be very busy with household tasks or work. Adolescents may be confined to their homes due to household responsibilities, social norms or disabilities, or they may spend long periods away from their homes earning income (or seeking to do so), often through unsafe and potentially harmful activities.

Understanding how adolescents spend their time can help you to identify windows of opportunity (both time and place) for reaching them through the Adolescent Circles approach.

Learn as much as you can about adolescents’ cultural, social and physical environments, as these can affect opportunities to play, learn and interact with others through interventions with the Adolescent Kit.

Cultural environment: Cultural, social, and religious norms may influence the types of activities that are considered acceptable for adolescents. In many contexts it is considered inappropriate or unsafe for adolescent boys and girls to interact, and/or for adolescent girls to move about or be seen unaccompanied in public. Marginalised adolescents may face discrimination or stigma, limiting their opportunities to participate in activities with other adolescent girls and boys. Religious practice, including daily prayer or annual holidays, can also affect the time adolescents have to participate in activities.

Social environment: Adolescents’ ethnic, religious or clan identity, as well as their family connections, place of origin or association with a political or military group, can shape how they relate to others – particularly in conflict-affected situations.

Physical environment: Adolescents who live in remote areas may not have the time or money to reach programmes that are located in community centres. Hazards such as traffic, road conditions, or the possibility of harassment, sexual assault, or robbery can also inhibit adolescents’ movement around their communities (often disproportionately creating barriers for girls and those with disabilities) and their participation in Adolescent Circles.

Even in difficult circumstances adolescents may enjoy activities such as playing sports, meeting friends, cooking, or caring for younger siblings. Ask adolescents what they enjoy or would like to try, and use this information to plan and run activities with the Adolescent Kit.

A top priority of adolescents in humanitarian circumstances is to gain knowledge and skills that will help them in their adult roles as heads of households, parents, students, earners and citizens.

They may be curious about certain issues, or want to know how to manage their current circumstances and contribute to their communities. Take time to discuss the type of skills and knowledge that adolescents want to gain through an intervention with the Adolescent Kit and select activities that meet their interests and needs.

Adolescents may experience shifts in their relationships as they grow and develop and their circumstances change. In humanitarian settings, adolescents are often isolated from their peers, and may experience tension with others in their households or community. Talk to adolescents about their relationships with peers, friends, family members and others. Use this information to plan and run activities with the Adolescent Kit that help them to strengthen positive relationships, and to address challenging ones.

Feeling hopeful with realistic goals for the future is a key element of psychosocial wellbeing. Talk to adolescents about their hopes and goals for their families and communities, and the changes they would like to see in their lives. As much as possible, plan and run activities that can help adolescents to develop the skills and knowledge they need to achieve their goals and improve their immediate circumstances.