• Let’s go back to the end of your programming, when you learned more about what adolescents in your community need. Taking all you learned from the first months of your safe space activities, you embark on the next cycle of programming. You decide to do more targeted outreach for older adolescents, and add several modules on pregnancy and family planning for married adolescent girls.

• You and your team also decide to build washrooms where girls can wash and dry their reusable pads. At first, you are encouraged by your efforts; now, out of 150 girls you have recruited, close to half are married, and they appear to enjoy getting together with other girls their age. Word‐of‐mouth has resulted in a waitlist for the next cohort, and you are planning on purchasing some sewing machines to respond to girls’ requests for livelihoods training.

• About one month in, however, you notice fewer and fewer girls coming for the weekly life skills sessions. You can’t be sure, but you believe it’s the married girls who have stopped attending. Some have said that they can no longer come in the afternoon because of household responsibilities.

• At the end of the intervention, you want to know how your programming is supporting adolescents. In focus group discussions, girls repeat things they have learned, but it isn’t clear if there has been any real impact on girls’ safety and well-being.

• Monitoring and evaluation are critical components of any program. When implementing targeted programming for adolescents, the I’m Here Approach provides tools to meaningfully involve adolescents in program design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. Real-time Monitoring supports program staff to improve retention, and Adolescent Benchmarks provide a framework for evaluating how programming has built adolescents’ strengths and assets.

Service-Area Mapping has 4 Key Steps

• Identify geographical area you wish to map

  What do adolescents consider to be the physical boundaries of their community? It may seem obvious that the community is a predefined physical area, such as a village or a refugee camp. However, adolescents may have a different idea of what constitutes their community. It is important to consult with adolescents as much as possible to understand what they consider to be the physical area of the community. This can be done in greater detail through participatory focus group activities, which will be described in a later section.

• Walk the perimeter

  Once you have an idea of the geographical area considered to be the community, you will physically walk (or drive) the perimeter of the community. Using mobile data collection software, you will collect a series of GPS points as you travel the perimeter of the community, and connect these points to create a map.

• Locate existing services

  Locating existing services, as well as risks or structures that are relevant to adolescents: Once you have the defined physical area, your team will walk (or drive) through the community and use mobile data collection software to pin existing services, such as schools, health centers, safe spaces, and community centers. It is also essential to pin potential risks, such as bars or cafes where men gather, army checkpoints, markets, or busy roads. This will help get a fuller picture of how adolescents navigate their community. Again, more in‐depth participatory activities with adolescents can be done at a later point in the I’m Here Approach. It can be incredibly useful to compare the results of the participatory activities with the service-area map you have created, highlighting how adolescents’ perceptions of their community can be quite different from adults’.

• Determine whether services are adolescent friendly

  The last step of the service-mapping activity is to determine whether existing services and programs are adolescent friendly. While adolescent friendly can mean many things, it is typically defined as services that are accessible, acceptable, and equitable. Keep reading for more information on determining whether services are adolescent friendly.

Adolescent mapping steps

• Select area to be mapped and estimate the number of surveyors and days needed

  • The first step is to select the program catchment area that you wish to map. Remember, adolescent mapping is a programming tool and is not meant to collect representative data.
  • Every household in the area you select will be surveyed. This requires having an idea of the number of households in a given area so you can accurately estimate the amount of time and the number of surveyors needed to complete the adolescent mapping.
  • Click here for a tool to estimate the number of days and surveyors needed.

• Ensure adolescent mapping tool is contextualized and translated

  • The adolescent mapping tool includes questions on a set of demographic characteristics that should always be measured. However, it might be required to adapt the tool to your setting. For example, for the question about schooling, you may need to change the response options to be in line with local education.
  • You may wish to add one to two questions if there are key demographic variables that are relevant in your community that are not included in the adolescent mapping tool. For example, if registration status as a refugee is a critical determinant for accessing services, you may wish to ask the household if they have a ration card.
  • Translate the tool into the local language of administration. Make sure the questions are understood by the entire survey team.

• Upload tools in mobile data-collection software

  • The adolescent mapping tool can be administered using any mobile data collection software. This will require a phone with internet connectivity.
  • Data can be collected offline but will need to be uploaded for analysis.

• Recruit and train data collection team

  • We recommend a data collection team of 10-15 people. The team should be half male and half female and will work in pairs to ensure that a surveyor of the same gender interviews the head of household. Each pair will have one mobile phone for data collection.
  • The survey team should be familiar with the local context; ideally, they are from the community being mapped and must speak the local language.
  • Surveyors should be experienced collecting data using a mobile platform.
  • Training can take one to two days depending on the team’s experience collecting data. Activities for the training are found in subsequent slides in this section.

• Data collection

  • Data collection can typically be completed in two to three days, depending on the number of households and surveyors.

• Data analysis

  • Adolescent mapping results in two main outputs: The Girl Roster™ and the Boy Matrix. Stored in an online platform, these provide easy‐to‐interpret information on various segments of the adolescent population.
  • We recommend engaging WRC for assistance in data analysis. The aim of adolescent mapping is to provide actionable information and requires looking at the data in specific ways. Please contact us for more information on the Girl Roster™ and the Boy Matrix.

• Utilizing information to identify beneficiaries

  Specifically, you can identify program beneficiaries in order to:

  • Establish what on‐track and off‐track means in your setting: At what age do most girls stop attending school? Are girls more likely than boys to have access to targeted adolescent programming? Are married adolescents less likely to attend programming?
  • Define your program’s target segments: What groups of adolescents have distinct differences in your community? What groups have less access to services and programming than others?
  • Understand which groups are being reached or not with current programming: How do the demographics of adolescents in your community compare to the demographics of your program participants? What groups are being excluded and what might the reasons be?
  • Set desired coverage level to achieve saturation within the program community: What are your target recruitment and enrolment rates? Will you have different targets for different groups of adolescents?
  • Determine segment‐specific recruitment strategies for adolescents: Now that you understand which groups are not being reached and the desired coverage level, consider how should your recruitment strategies be adjusted? How might current recruitment strategies reinforce exclusion of certain groups? What alternative recruitment strategies can be adopted for hard‐to‐reach groups?

Assumption Crosscheck Activity

• Have program staff complete a table like this with their estimates of what percentage of adolescents fit in each category. The categories can be adjusted based on your context and can be filled out separately for girls and boys.

• After completing the adolescent mapping, produce tables that match those filled out during the assumption crosscheck activity.

• Discuss differences between the program staff’s assumptions and reality. What were the most common assumptions that we made about adolescents in our community? Why might we have made these assumptions? How might our current outreach and recruitment strategies reinforce our assumptions? How might our program activities reinforce our assumptions?

• Contact WRC for additional information and support in conducting the assumption crosscheck activity.

Participatory Ranking Methodology

• Decide on a framing question and gather supplies

  • The PRM exercise begins with a simple framing question. One of the following usually works well:
    • What are the greatest needs for girls/boys like you in this community?
    • What are the biggest concerns for girls/boys like you in this community?

  • Gather a variety of everyday objects to use in the PRM activity (e.g., pencil, marker, piece of paper, stuffed animal or toy, sunglasses, book, piece of cloth, stick).

• Gather a group of participants

  • The PRM exercise works best with six to eight participants.
  • Create groups according to age, gender, and other important characteristics (e.g., married or not, in school or out of school).
  • Obtain informed consent and remind participants about confidentiality.
  • Inform participants that this exercise will take around 30 minutes.
  • Conduct the PRM activity in a location with sufficient auditory and visual privacy.

• Listing

  • Pose the framing question and have participants list their needs and concerns.
  • Write down responses in the order in which they are mentioned.
  • Once the list is complete, read back the responses to make sure you captured everything.
  • You may have to summarize responses into a concise word or phrase. For example, if a girl describes in detail how she has trouble finding a washroom that has privacy, you may list “washroom privacy.”
  • Similarly, make sure that each need or concern is distinct and understood by all participants. For the example above, you want to make sure the concern is related to washroom privacy, and not to a low number of washrooms in the community.

• Assigning physical objects

  • Tell the participants that they will now select a physical object to represent each of the needs or concerns that they listed.
  • Spread out the physical objects you have brought for the activity. Participants can also add to the pile of objects with items as they wish.
  • Read out each need/concern from your list and ask participants to agree on an item to represent each need/concern, writing down which item represents each need/concern.
  • Once participants have assigned a physical object to each need or concern, make sure they remember what each represents. Hold up each physical object one by one and ask participants to repeat what need/concern it represents. Refer to your list to remind them, as necessary.

• Ranking

  • Explain to the participants that they will now work together to rank the needs and concerns in order of importance, using the physical objects.
  • Instruct participants to place the item that is the greatest or most important need or concern at one end of a line, followed by the second most important, the third most important, and so on until they have placed the item that is the LEAST important.
  • While disagreements among participants are fine, they should understand that the ranking should be done collaboratively and not by one of two members of the group.
  • Once the line is complete, ask the participants if they wish to make any changes to the order.
  • List the items in order from greatest to least need/concern.

• Discussion

  • PRM can serve as an entry point for further discussion about adolescents’ needs and priorities. You can probe for further discussion by asking:
    • Who do adolescents typically talk to about the needs/concerns they have mentioned?
    • What kind of services would help address these needs/concerns?
    • Are there any needs/concerns that might be more important for different types of adolescents (e.g., needs/concerns that may be more important as a girl gets older).

Community Mapping

• Introducing the activity

  • Gather 10-12 adolescents with similar background characteristics (age, gender, marital status, etc.)
  • Explain to participants that they will be drawing a map of their community in order to identify places where they do and do not go, and those that are safe and unsafe. Inform participants that this activity will help to design programming for adolescents in their community and will inform you and your team how best to refer adolescents to other programs services.
  • Divide participants into smaller groups of 3-4. Instruct them to begin by thinking of a central reference point, such as a main road, marketplace, or the group meeting place.
  • If the participants are having a hard time deciding on a central reference point, have them brainstorm a number of possibilities and write them on the flip chart.

• Draw the maps

  • Ask each small group to start at the central reference point and then begin drawing all of the major places they know (e.g., schools, religious buildings, markets, bars, shops, clinics, bus stops, railroad tracks, roads, recreational areas, police stations).
  • Circulate around to each group and encourage them to discuss other places they know, and ask them to draw these on their maps.
  • Give the groups 10-15 minutes to finish drawing their maps.

• Identify places in the community where adolescents visit

  • Once all small groups are finished drawing their maps, tell them they are now going to label their maps. Ask them to draw:
    • A heart next to places where they spend the most time;
    • A triangle next to places where they spend some time;
    • A square next to places they rarely go; and
    • An X next to places they never go.
  • To assist the participants, draw the shapes and their meaning on a chalkboard or flip chart so they remain visible during the mapping exercise.

• Exploring unsafe places

  • To assist the girls in identifying and discussing the places in their communities that may be unsafe, ask them to draw a circle around the places they feel are unsafe.
  • Then instruct them to rank each of the unsafe spaces by writing a number 1 through 5 next to each circle, where 1 is unsafe and 5 is extremely unsafe. If a space is safe, they can leave it marked with only the shapes from Step 3.
    • If participants are unable to write numbers, you can choose additional shapes or colors in place of numbers.

• Discussion

  • Initiate a discussion about the places in the community where adolescents cannot go and explore the reasons why.
  • Use the following probes to stimulate discussion on each location participants have placed an ‘X’ (i.e. they do not go there):
    • Why do they not go there?
    • Is the location unsafe?
    • Do their parents or guardians forbid them from going there?
    • Is the location too far from home?
    • Do they have to go through an unsafe area to get there?

Asset Exercise

• What is the Asset Exercise?

  The Population Council’s 2015 Building Assets Toolkit supports an interactive exercise to identify program activities that build protective assets.

  The Asset Exercise invites participants to consider what concrete information, skills, relationships, and other assets girls should have, and by what age, in order to make a safe transition to adulthood. Different groups may produce different visions for what assets girls need, and when. The Asset Exercise can help to identify both common and competing views from girls, caregivers, or program staff, which can help inform decisions about program content.

  Assets can serve either as content for tailored, community-based girls’ programming or as indicators of program quality.

  While designed to inform adolescent girl programming, the Asset Exercise can be adapted to inform programs that also work with boys.

• The Asset Exercise is intended to:

  • provoke critical thinking among practitioners about program goals, content, and potential links with services or programming across sectors;
  • operationalize the idea that girls’ abilities to make and act on healthy choices rests in part on what assets they control and can mobilize when needed;
  • engage girls, practitioners and community stakeholders in the same process; and
  • inform decision-making about concrete program components, such as priority age “segments” for programming, age-appropriate content, and potential indicators of programs’ success.

• The current version of the Building Asset Toolkit includes:

  • eight age cards ranging from age 6 to age 20
  • a deck of 100 asset cards, and a 70-card version is available for humanitarian settings
  • the background, or “origin story” for each card;
  • a list of resources on key learning from girl-only programming; and
  • a worksheet that guides practitioners from the identification of key assets to their use in program design or evaluation.

  View the Building Assets Toolkit.

Steps for Conducting the Asset Exercise

• Gather a group of eight to 10 participants (e.g., adolescents, program staff, parents/caregivers, or community members.) Groups participants should be from a similar background and be familiar with one another.

• Lay the eight age cards in order on the floor or tape to a wall.

• With your group, identify a few assets and invite different participants to model placing the asset card. Participants should place the asset cards directly underneath the age card representing the latest age or stage at which a girl should have that particular asset.

• Divide participants into smaller groups of three to four and distribute the asset cards evenly. This approach is best used if you have a large group.

• Invite groups to discuss each asset card and decide where to place it. Remind participants that the card should be placed under the age card that represents the latest age or stage at which a girl should have that particular asset.

• After the groups place their asset cards under the age cards, look at the results and discuss the following questions as a group:

  • For girls in this community, does this asset typically come at the right age?
  • For girls in this community, does this asset prepare her for risk scenarios?
  • Which assets come earlier or later as a result of conflict and displacement?
  • Are there certain subgroups who achieve these assets either earlier or later? For example, out-of-school adolescents, adolescents with disabilities, adolescents without a parent or caregiver
  • What are the most important or desirable assets (‘core assets’)?
    • For the core assets identified: i. Under the current program arrangements, does the content exist and do mechanisms exist to deliver these assets to these girls? ii. Does your identification of core assets line up with the measures you are using to assess progress?

• The Asset Exercise can be repeated with different groups of participants. If your organization implements programming for adolescent boys, the exercise can be adapted for this population.

Steps for QR card utilization

• Carry out assessments

  Carry out assessments to understand any potential challenges, barriers or risks of utilizing QR cards in your community

  • Talk to adolescents: Are they familiar with QR cards? Do they use them for any other program or service? Would they feel comfortable carrying around a card? How would they keep track of their card?
  • Talk to parents and caregivers: Are they familiar with QR cards? Would they feel comfortable for their adolescents to carry around a QR card?
  • Talk to other service providers: Are QR cards used by any other program or service? If so, what have been the successes and challenges? If not, why not? Have they identified any risks that you may not have thought of?

• Think through the logistics

  Think through the logistics of QR card utilization

  • How will you print and laminate the cards?
  • How will you keep track of QR cards? What will you do if a participant loses their card? How will you ensure that the owner of the card is the only one using it?
  • How will you train program staff on QR card utilization?
  • Who will be responsible for scanning QR cards?
  • Do you want to track access to any other services or programs? If so, how will you coordinate QR card scans?

• Set up QR card registration questionnaire

  • QR cards will be linked to demographic information, similar to information collected during adolescent mapping.
  • Utilize this form [link to form] as a starting point for QR card registration.
  • Upload the form to your mobile data collection platform.

• Create, print, and laminate QR cards

  • QR cards can be created for free using this QR code generator.
  • To simplify the process, open an excel file. Create a list of numbers. Copy/paste list of number into this QR code generator.
  • Copy/paste the QR codes generated into a word document. Space out the QR codes on the word document. If you wish to add additional information to the card – such as emergency contact information – you may do so now.
  • Print the word document – normal paper is fine – and cut around each QR code in the shape of an ID card.
  • You may wish to let participants draw on or decorate their card before laminating the cards

• Disseminate QR cards

  • Decide who will get QR cards. You may decide that only program participants will get a QR card, or you may choose to disseminate QR cards to all adolescents in your program catchment area to track who is accessing your programming.
  • Collect demographic data when you provide the QR card, using the QR card registration form. The QR card should be linked to an adolescent’s demographic information, but not to any identifiable personal information such as name or address.

  Link to QR card registration form

• Scanning QR cards

  • Staff members should be trained in how to scan QR cards. Most mobile data collection software can accommodate QR card scanning.
  • QR cards may be scanned only at your program site, or you may wish to provide other service providers, such as health clinics, with the ability to scan QR cards. This depends on the capacity of other service providers and the level of coordination that exists between your team and others.

• Making use of the data

  • Use data from QR cards should be used to monitor recruitment, registration, attendance, and retention.
  • Review data on a regular basis to see any changes in attendance and identify what groups of adolescents attend programming more or less.
  • Considering linking data to the adolescent benchmarks to see how attendance affects program outcomes.

  The I’m Here adolescent benchmarks were developed to offer program staff ways to meaningfully measure outcomes and impact of programming, and to identify how adolescents may benefit differently from programming.

Benchmark questionnaire

• Select which benchmarks you wish to include

  • The full Benchmark questionnaire has 100 items. While it may be possible to administer the full questionnaire, program teams should make sure that they are not collecting data for the sake of collecting data.
  • Ideally, your survey should include no more than 60 benchmarks and include benchmarks from all realms.
  • Make sure whatever Benchmarks you include are applicable in your program context, and are clearly linked to your program objectives.
  • Benchmarks should be linked with the assets identified in the asset exercise.

• Translate the benchmark survey

  • Translations should be validated to ensure that benchmarks are well understood by adolescents

• Upload benchmark survey into mobile data collection platform

  • Benchmark surveys should be administered using a mobile data collection software, such as Magpi, Kobo, or Ona.
  • Uploading the survey into the mobile data collection platform should be done by someone who has experience programming such tools.
  • Make sure the survey is coded correctly for skip patterns and response options.
  • Pilot the survey with three to four adolescents to see how long administration of the tool will take.

• Hire and train surveyors

  • Surveyors should have experience with quantitative data collection, ideally using a mobile device.
  • Surveyors should be fluent in the local language, and ideally have some experience collecting sensitive information from adolescents or young people.
  • We recommend a three-day training with surveyors. Day one of the training should be dedicated to reviewing the benchmarks one-by-one. Small adjustments to language and phrasing can be made at this time. The first day of training should also involve reviewing ethics of research and informed consent.
  • Days two and three of the training should be used for practice and role play until all surveyors are comfortable administering the full set of benchmarks.

• Administer the survey at baseline

  • If benchmarks are being used as an evaluation tool, they should be administered before any program activities begin.
  • While it is ideal for all participants to take the benchmark survey, no participant should be forced to do so.
  • Informed consent and assent should be obtained prior to administration of the benchmarks.
  • You may choose to collect identifiable information, such as participant ID, as part of the benchmarks in order to track individual changes from baseline to endline.  This can also be done by scanning participant QR cards – which are linked to their demographic information and participant ID – at the start of the benchmark survey.

• Administer the survey at endline

  • The same exact set of benchmarks should be administered at endline. Ideally, endline data collection should take place 2-4 weeks after completion of the intervention.

  • Additional questions regarding program participation can be added to the endline survey. For example, you may wish to know how often participants attended sessions, or how many they missed. You can also include some questions to assess the quality of the intervention, and how participants hope to utilize what they learned.

• Data analysis

  • Data analysis can be as simple or complex as you wish. Simple data analysis looks at overall changes between baseline and endline. For example, comparing what percentage of adolescents know about puberty changes at the start of intervention to the end of the intervention. This will show where the intervention was successful in building adolescents’ protective assets.

  • More complex analyses would look at how changes in assets differ for different sub-groups of adolescents.  For example, do older adolescent girls benefit more from programming than younger ones? Do adolescent boys’ assets change less than adolescent girls? This kind of analysis requires support from someone who is experienced with advanced statistical analysis using statistical analysis software such as STATA, SPSS, or SAS.

• Utilizing data for programming

  • What is perhaps most important is how data will be used for future programming.   A simple way to do this is to answer the following questions with your team:
    • Which assets showed the most “improvement” from baseline to endline? What does this say about your program? Why do you think it succeeded in building these assets? How can you continue to build these assets through your future programming?
    • Which assets showed little or no change from baseline to endline? Were these topics covered in your intervention? If so, why do you think your program failed to build these assets? What else is needed to do so? If your intervention did not cover these topics, should you cover them in the future? Are they important and relevant for adolescents in your community?
    • Did any assets “worsen” from baseline to endline? Why might this be?
    • Did any sub-groups of adolescents experience greater improvements in their assets than others? Why might this be? What changes could be made to support sub-groups of adolescents who experienced less improvements in their assets?
    • What changes cannot be captured using quantitative data? Or, what changes do you want to understand in more-depth using qualitative methodologies?