Why in News?

• Promoting health and prevention of disease and risk factors is an important aspect of the Rashtriya Kishore Swasthya Karyakram under the National Health Mission.

Highlights:

• Various platforms being used to promote health and well-being of adolescents through Social and Behaviour Change Communication are as follows:

1. 1.Quarterly Adolescent Health Day
2. 2.Peer Educator Programme in the community and schools

• Besides this, Health promotion messages are also propagated through mass media and mid- media in the form of TV and radio spots, posters, leaflets and other interpersonal communication material.
• Social Media platforms are used for creating awareness on various schemes of the Ministry including those for the adolescents.
• Out of a total sanctioned strength of 2040 Adolescent Health Counsellors, there are 1671 Adolescent Health Counsellors in place across the country.

Initiatives:

• Public health being a State subject, all the administrative and personnel matters, including the recruitment of counsellors in public health facilities lie with the respective State Governments.
• The shortage of health human resource in public health facilities varies from State to State depending upon their policies and context.

• However, under National Health Mission (NHM), financial and technical supports are provided to the State/UTs to strengthen their healthcare systems including support for recruitment of health human resource based on the requirements posed by them in their Programme Implementation Plans (PIPs) within their overall resource envelope.

Components:

• Rashtriya Kishore Swasthya Karyakram has the following components:
• The Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics are established across various levels of public health institutions in all the States.
• Weekly Iron Folic Acid Supplementation (WIFS) Programme is being implemented for school going adolescent boys and girls and out of school adolescent girls across the country.
• The Peer Educator Programme is being implemented in select 200 districts, based on Composite Health Index and identified as High Priority Districts (HPDs).
• Under the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme, funds are provided to the States/UTs for procurement of sanitary napkins for Adolescent Girls (aged 10-19 years) as per proposals received from them in their Annual Programme Implementation Plans.
• Rashtriya Kishore Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK) focuses on reaching out all adolescents include Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ).