Handbook on adolescent development research published

(13 April 2018) Despite huge gains in child well-being during the MDG era, progress for adolescents – children in the second decade of life – is still lagging behind. The recently published Handbook of Adolescent Development Research and its Impact on Global Policy, edited by Jennifer E. Lansford and Prerna Banati, aims to fill critical evidence gaps to speed evolution of better policy-making specifically tuned to this dynamic life stage.

Of the 1.2 billion adolescents in the world today, 90% live in low- and middle-income countries. Enrollment in secondary schools is still low for adolescents in many parts of the world, with illiteracy rates approaching 30% in the least developed countries. Further, adolescents not in school are more vulnerable to trafficking, recruitment into armed conflict, and child labor. Many adolescent girls marry and begin bearing children at a young age, contributing to the perpetuation of poverty and health problems.

A group of youth use a smartphone to take a selfie outside a Community Management Committee meeting in Assamo neighbourhood in Djibouti.

Adolescents also represent a resource to be cultivated through education and training, to move them toward economic independence. This can be accomplished through initiatives to improve their reproductive health, and through positive interpersonal relationships to help them avoid risky behaviors and make positive decisions about their futures.

“Several years ago, a similar handbook on early childhood development was transformative in our approach to early childhood. By bringing state of the art research to policymakers and practitioners, we hope this volume will go some way to improving the lives of adolescents globally,” said Prerna Banati, lead researcher on adolescent well-being at UNICEF Innocenti.

The new handbook will be invaluable for a wide range of stakeholders working with adolescents in low- and middle-income countries. The volume tackles both the challenges and the promise of adolescence by presenting recent research on social, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and physical development. The volume looks at adolescent development with a distinctive focus on issues that affect adolescents in low- and middle-income countries. It adopts a positive framing, representing young people as opportunities, to accelerate a positive shift in discourses around young people.

According to Laurence Steinberg of Temple University, a leading expert on adolescence, the handbook is “An important and timely resource. It combines up-to-date reviews of research on adolescent development by the world's leading authorities with thoughtful discussions of some of the most pressing concerns that societies face in both developed and developing countries in their efforts to minimize problematic outcomes and maximize positive development during this critical stage of development.”

In most contexts, policy and programme responses to adolescents are fragmented and inconsistent. Disconnects between national level policies and local services, as well as lack of continuity with early childhood responses, present a significant challenge to ensuring a coherent approach for this age group. Increasingly, adolescent participation and demands for rights-based approaches are seen, and often unfortunately conflated with violence. This volume adopts the perspective of young people as a valued investment both at individual and societal levels.

“An important and timely resource. It combines up-to-date reviews of research on adolescent development by the world's leading authorities with thoughtful discussions of some of the most pressing concerns that societies face in both developed and developing countries..."

- Laurence Steinberg, Temple University

“The bulk of research comes from high income contexts, so we don’t have a good enough evidence base in the settings where most adolescents are living today,” said Banati. “There has been quite a bit of policy attention paid to older adolescents, younger adolescence seems to slip between the policy cracks. There is also substantial incoherence in policy approaches, as evidenced in the volume.”

Over the last thirty-five years, specialized journals addressing adolescent issues have been launched, including the Journal of Adolescence, the Journal of Adolescent Research, and the Journal of Research on Adolescents. Despite a growth in scholarly literature, much is still disproportionately focused on adolescent experience in high income Western contexts, with comparatively few empirical studies of young people growing up in non-Western nations published in English language journals devoted to the field of adolescent development. Much scientific evidence developed in the global North, lacks reflection on the diverse experiences of adolescents around the world, including in harsh situations of war, conflict, chronic stress or malnutrition. And surprisingly few of the major scientific findings on adolescence have been translated into effective policy.

Adolescence is often described as the developmental period from the onset of puberty until the transition to adulthood, variously defined by one, some or all of the following: marriage, parenthood, completion of formal education, financial independence from parents (approximately ages 10-20). 

According to the handbook: “Arguably a social construction, its initial widespread use conferred gender, race and class connotations and implications: ‘the ‘adolescent boy’ was to be managed and contained, while allowed to be ‘wild;’ the adolescent girl was to be trained and domesticated’ (Morrow, 2015). In modern times, adolescence has largely had a bad reputation. Used interchangeably with ‘teenager,’ Western notions tend to describe a period of ‘storm and stress’ (Hall, 1904), involving hormones, drama, unsafe experimentation, and irresponsibility. However, in many parts of the world, arriving at adolescence marks increasing responsibility – with many hurtling towards adulthood by entering the workforce, marriage or parenthood. Adolescents in one country may be protected from economic or domestic responsibilities, in another, such responsibilities may not only be the norm, but considered beneficial for both the adolescent and the family.”

A diverse group of over 50 authors from different countries and disciplinary backgrounds have contributed chapters to this volume. This diversity reflects the complexity of adolescence, while allowing the volume to situate adolescents within broader cultural contexts. This makes the volume more relevant for global policy debates and political decision-making regarding when, why, and how some programs and interventions for adolescents should be tailored to better serve the needs of their intended recipients. The diverse contributions collectively relay a powerful underlying narrative seen across the chapters, which describes adolescents as a positive force, to be valued and understood. In challenging historical interpretations of adolescence, the volume has engaged with contemporary issues explicitly, and sometimes implicitly across the chapters, including the topics of migration and human security, technology and inequality.

PRESS RELEASE: Asylum-seeking children in Nordic countries face significant gaps in protection and access to services

FLORENCE, 20 March 2018 – Despite a world-leading record of commitment to child rights, Nordic countries are failing to provide full protection and services for asylum-seeking children. Protected on Paper? An analysis of Nordic country responses to asylum-seeking children, produced by the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, reports on legal and procedural standards for migrant and refugee children, and the extent to which they are being applied on the ground in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

Protected on Paper? documents a clear tendency in all five Nordic countries to give precedence to migration law over international obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The report finds that, despite proper legal and procedural measures being largely in place, implementation lapses expose many children to significant risks in the asylum-seeking process, as well as critical gaps in protection, healthcare and education services.

“The Nordic countries covered in this report all have well-deserved reputations for protecting children’s rights. Nonetheless, our research reveals significant challenges in the care and treatment of asylum-seeking children across the five countries,” said Sarah Cook Director of the UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti. “This is a powerful reminder that the global community must take seriously the commitment to protect all children’s rights, without regard to their migration or asylum status.”

Lilas Alzaeem came to Norway as a refugee from Syria, Damascus five years ago. She now lives in Oslo and attends the medical faculty at university.

Protected on Paper?, commissioned by the five Nordic National Committees for UNICEF, is based on in-depth legal analysis, assessment of the practical application of procedural standards—both gaps and good practices—and interviews with leading migration and child rights experts in the five Nordic countries. It also provides detailed recommendations on how procedural safeguards should be strengthened to comply with international commitments.  

In many instances immigration officers, as opposed to child protection specialists, are tasked to make critical decisions and coordinate urgent care for children. As a result, proper assessment of the best interests of the child—a key principle of the Convention on the Rights of the Child—is not uniformly adhered to for all asylum-seeking children. Another commonly identified problem is the tendency for national standards and principles to be poorly coordinated, communicated and applied by local service providers.

Guardianship is a key safeguarding mechanism for unaccompanied and separated children; however, in some cases there is an inadequate firewall between the administration of guardians and immigration services. Child protection agencies should lead efforts to establish clear procedures for recruitment, training, supervision and support of guardians.

“These children who are seeking asylum in the Nordic countries cannot be allowed to exist in a kind of limbo state,” said Bina D’Costa, lead migration research specialist with the UNICEF Office of Research. “Lack of coordination, poor communication or lack of transparency about where and how children can access essential services should not prevent them from receiving the urgent, time-sensitive care and support that all children deserve.”

While the Nordic countries all have well-established mechanisms for enabling children to have their opinions taken into consideration on matters that affect them, asylum-seeking children are given only sporadic and inconsistent opportunities to have their voices heard. This has profound child rights implications in age assessment, best interests determination, guardianship and throughout the asylum process.

Noor Ullah (left) and Mohammed Ali (right) originally from Afghanistan, now residing as asylum-seekers in Nesode, Norway.

Asylum-seeking children can generally access basic medical treatment, but the full extent of health care services available to families varies widely between states and municipalities. As a result, entitlements are not always clear to either patient or practitioner. Under such circumstances, the growing phenomenon of mental health problems among children subjected to long periods of uncertainty about their legal status, is a primary concern.

Most Nordic states’ educational systems have coped with the arrival of refugee children since 2015, but legal and administrative barriers often mean that children wait too long before entering mainstream school systems and early learning programmes.

There have been reports of asylum-seeking children being detained, for brief periods, even though national law prohibits detention of anyone under 18, in line with CRC. In some cases, asylum-seeking children have been forcibly returned with their families, while unaccompanied or separated children deported on reaching eighteen years of age.

Protected on Paper? provides detailed general and country specific policy and procedure recommendations aimed at bringing the countries covered in the report into full compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as called for in UNICEF’s global Agenda for Action, and the 2017 Roadmap for unaccompanied and separated children in Europe developed jointly by UNHCR, UNICEF and IRC.

Selected general recommendations for all Nordic countries

• Restate the primacy of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, over migration/asylum law, and make an explicit commitment to apply the same rules and standards to asylum-seeking children that apply to all other children, for the entire period they remain in country.
• Ensure that law, policy and practice stipulate the referral of all asylum-seeking children to child protection authorities immediately upon arrival, and that such a referral becomes an integral element of the registration process.
• Remove all barriers to asylum-seeking children’s rapid enrolment and full inclusion in mainstream schools and early learning programmes.
• Ensure that access to equal health care, including mental health care, for all asylum-seeking children serves to integrate asylum seekers into mainstream national health systems, in countries where relevant.
• For all child protection facilities and services, eliminate any residence requirement for users of services, to ensure that they are accessible to asylum-seeking women and children when needed.
• Revise guardianship services and establish a code of good practice to ensure that both guardianship and legal representation are available to every asylum-seeking child immediately upon arrival.

UNICEF’s Agenda for Action

This report provides important regional evidence in support UNICEF’s global call to protect the nearly 50 million children on the move. The Agenda is based on six priority policy asks which apply to every country:

1. Press for action on the causes that uproot children from their homes: Improve efforts to protect children from conflict and to address the root causes of violence and poverty;
2. Help uprooted children to stay in school and stay healthy: Increase collective efforts to provide uprooted children with access to an education and health services, shelter, nutrition, and water and sanitation.
3. Keep families together and give children legal status: Strengthen policies to prevent children from being separated from their families in transit, and faster procedures to reunite children with their families.
4. End detention of refugee and migrant children and create practical alternatives: Unaccompanied and separated children should be placed in foster care or other family/community-based living arrangements. 
5. Combat xenophobia and discrimination: Local leaders and organizations must help combat xenophobia and build greater understanding between uprooted children, families and host communities. 
6. Protect uprooted children from exploitation and violence: Increase safe and legal channels for children to migrate and to seek refuge by cracking down on trafficking and strengthening child protection systems.

Notes for Journalists:

Download the full report: www.unicef-irc.org

Download press-kit and multi-media materials:  http://uni.cf/2IneDsK

About the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti: The Office of Research – Innocenti is UNICEF’s dedicated research centre. It undertakes research on emerging or current issues in order to inform the strategic directions, policies and programmes of UNICEF and its partners, shape global debates on child rights and development, and inform the global research and policy agenda for all children, and particularly for the most vulnerable. Please visit: www.unicef-irc.org

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About UNICEF: UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do.  Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere. For more information about UNICEF and its work for children, visit www.unicef.org 

For more information, please contact:

• Dale Rutstein, Chief, Communication, UNICEF Florence, + 39 3357582585, drutstein@unicef.org
• Sarah Crowe, Refugee and Migrant spokesperson, UNICEF Geneva, +41 795438029, scrowe@unicef.org
• Patrizia Faustini, UNICEF Florence, +39 0552033253, pfaustini@unicef.org
• Ivar Stokkereit, UNICEF Norway, +47 93424062, ivar.stokkereit@unicef.no
• Jakob Ebeling, UNICEF Denmark, +45 35273842,  jebeling@unicef.dk
• Susan Knorrenborg, UNICEF Denmark, +45 35273866, sknorrenborg@unicef.dk
• Minna Suihkonen, UNICEF Finland, +358 405511055, minna.suihkonen@unicef.fi
• Mirella Huttunen, UNICEF Finland, +358409004879, mirella.huttunen@unicef.fi
• Eva Bjarnadottir, UNICEF Iceland, +354 5526300, evab@unicef.is
• Steinunn Jakobsdóttir, UNICEF Iceland, +354 5786336, steinunn@unicef.is
• Karin Odquist, UNICEF Sweden, +46 86922557,  karin.odquist@unicef.se
• Christina Kerpner, UNICEF Sweden, +46 703707445, christina.kerpner@unicef.se