Digital integration for youth and parents: Reaching youth through their parents

Summary:

Today's youths in Indonesia have an increasingly permissive attitude toward premarital sex. Yet, this is not accompanied with a good understanding about sexual and reproductive health (SRH), as well as access to protective health services. Currently, as many as 1 in 10 teenage girls between the age of 15 to 19 is either already married, is a mother, or is currently pregnant. Lack of knowledge of youths is one of the main factor behind this. Our research found that youths expect to receive information from their parents, but parents think government and school should be providing the information. Skata, a website/app focusing on family planning and RH conducted a campaign entitled 1001 Ways to Speak with Your Teens. The campaign aims to bridge the existing communication gap between parents and their adolescent through: Development of a '1001 Ways-to-Speak e-Book; Development of a short movie that describes the various miscommunications that frequently occur between parents and their children; Development of daily content on the digital media; Development of lecture on WhatsApp; A talk show in large cities in Indonesia; and linking Skata to the youth website DokterGenZ so that parents can see the perspective of teens and vice versa. Since the introduction of the parenting content, Skata visitors have increased over 2 million, social media impression raised to 2.6 million, online learning session has been joined by more than 3,000 participants, and all the materials have been adopted by the government for wider distribution.

Background/Objectives

Data from program monitoring and the DHS and other survey from 2012 2017 show an increasingly permissive attitude toward premarital sex among teens. Yet, this is not accompanied with a good understanding about sexual and reproductive health, as well as access to protective health services. Currently, as many as 1 in 10 teenage girls between the age of 15 to 19 is either already married, is a mother, or is currently pregnant. The absent of parents in reproductive health and sexuality education is one of the primary factors contributing to an increasing number of child marriages and abortion.

Description Of Intervention And/or Methods/Design

To better engage and prepare parents for discussing SRH with their adolescents we are building: 1) digital and offline content for parents with a focus on how parents can discuss SRH topics with their children; 2) links from our parenting site, Skata, to youth platform so that the content on both sites parallel and strengthen each other. All the above is conducted under a campaign 1001 Ways to Speak with Your Teens. The campaign aims to bridge the existing communication gap through: Development of a '1001-Cara-Bicara' e-Book; Development of a short movie that describes the various miscommunications that frequently occur between parents and their children; Development of content on the digital media; Development of lecture on WhatsApp; A talk show in several large cities in Indonesia; and linking Skata to the youth website so that parents can also see the perspective of teens and vice versa.

Results/Lessons Learned

Since the introduction of the parenting content, Skata visitors have increased significantly to over 2 million, social media impressions increased to 2.6 million, online learning sessions have been joined by more than 3,000 participants, and all the materials have been adopted by the National FP Agency of Indonesia for wider distribution in Indonesia. We will continue working with partners, both online and offline, beyond government agencies' channels and platforms. We are opening a series of online learning forum for public. We are also conducting a Training for Facilitators to make sure a similar learning forum can take place in the field assisted by local facilitators.

Discussion/Implications For The Field

Parents are important gatekeepers, facilitator's, and influencers of their children's health and attitudes toward SRH in Indonesia. Adolescents who have regular conversations with their parents about sex and relationships are less likely to take risks with their sexual health. We have observed that a lot of materials have been developed to target the youths directly. However, as we build these materials for youth, it is important to remember their parents and build complementary platforms and content for them.

Abstract submitted by:

Dinar Pandan Sari - Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs