Gender Equity Today for Youth (GET 4 Youth) Pilot Package

"Collectively, the package improves upon what is known to work, brings those innovations to new audiences, and also incorporates novel ways of reaching new audience."



The Gender Equity Today for Youth (GET 4 Youth) pilot package consists of five interventions that are designed to create a gender-equitable environment in which very young adolescents (VYAs) (10-14 years old) can grow and thrive. When implemented together in a defined jurisdiction (e.g., a community, province, or state), the five interventions are, in particular, designed to reduce gender-based bullying and improve mental health outcomes. The package does this by reaching key systems and influencers in very VYAs' environment, such as caregivers, school faculty and staff, community leaders and members, and government leaders. The five interventions, which were developed through human-centred design (HCD), consist of entertainment-education, skills-building programmes, an event/installation, and an approach for integrating the package with local programmes and strategies.



As explained in the package, "Gender inequities are key determinants of morbidity and mortality. Although gender norms and social expectations are shaped and experienced at a young age and intensify throughout adolescence, there is a lack of gender-focused programming tailored to VYAs 10-14 years of age. Further, many gender equity-focused interventions are individual-level approaches that do not address key influencers in the VYA environment, such as caregivers and parents, the school environment, community leaders, or government representatives."



The package was co-designed, tested, and refined using the HCD approach by Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP), the Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS), Perkumpulan Keluarga Berencana Indonesia (PKBI) Bali, and ThinkPlace, together with local stakeholders. The HCD approach involves the end users in the creation of the product across three rounds of testing. In this case, these end users included key influencers across the VYA environment, as well as potential implementers and facilitators. The development of this package was conceived in three phases: a low-fidelity phase with a focus on validating the prototypes' desirability, a medium-fidelity phase focused on validating their feasibility, and a high-fidelity phase focused on validating their potential for scalability. All testing was conducted in Indonesia. For more information about the design and test process, see Related Summaries, below.



The objective of the five interventions is essentially to create opportunities for caregivers to strengthen their relationships and communication skills with their VYA children by providing adults - caregivers, school faculty and staff, and government and community leaders - with opportunities to empathise with VYAs and reflect on how the gender norms they may inadvertently reinforce can actually cause harm to VYAs.



The five interventions are as follows:



Multi-Stakeholder Forum: An approach for integrating the package within local programmes and initiatives, the Multi-Stakeholder Forum is a steering committee of cross-sector community and government leaders that works to:

• Increase knowledge and gender-equitable attitudes among community and government leaders;
• Prioritise gender-equitable programming; and
• Provide a gateway for piloting and implementing this package.

Exhibition: This interactive and immersive art experience for adults and VYAs is designed to help them understand and empathise with experiences of bullying in general and gender-based bullying in particular, to release and express their emotions through participatory art, and to engage in a community dialogue around gender norms.



Family Space: A progressive series of five classes for caregivers and VYAs, the Family Space focuses on strengthening caregiver-adolescent relationships, surfacing gender norms, and creating space for critical reflection and discussion in an engaging, dynamic environment.



Safe Schools: This whole-school programme for middle schools is designed to complement existing bullying prevention programmes and seeks to equip schools to respond to bullying in a gender-equitable way through three main components:

• Training for faculty and staff
• A reporting system for VYAs
• An external referral system for complex cases

Interactive Videos: Intended for school faculty and staff and to appeal to community leaders as parents, these videos are designed with "choose your own ending" decision points that seek to initiate collective identification, reflection, and discussion about gender norms. The videos can be used within the Family Space, the Exhibition, Safe Schools, and the Multi-Stakeholder Forum.



For each of the five interventions, the package looks at what the intervention is and how this solution came about in the HCD process, the rationale for this intervention, who is involved, and how it is innovative. Each section also includes: implementation, adaptation, and evaluation guidance; customisable resources; and implementation checklists.