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

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

• Quarterly Adolescent Health Day
• 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 Twitter and You Tube are used for creating awareness on various schemes of the Ministry including those for the adolescents. Tweets are posted regularly covering health messages and print advertisements while videos and short films or documentaries are uploaded on You Tube; the links to the same are tweeted as well on Twitter.

At present more than 12 lakh persons follow the Twitter handle of the Ministry while the you tube channel has 15.1 lakh subscribers

Out of a total sanctioned strength of 2040 Adolescent Health Counsellors, there are 1671 Adolescent Health Counsellors in place across the country.

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.

Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram has the following components:

-The Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics (AFHCs) 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). Within, these districts, 50% of the blocks are beingcovered for implementation of Peer Educator Programme in entirety. Government plans to saturate all the blocks in the selected Peer Educator districts first and then expand in remaining districts gradually based on proposals received from States in their Programme Implementation Plans.

-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 Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK) focuses on reaching out alladolescents include Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ). The training of the Medical Officers, ANMs,  Counsellors and Peer educators also caters to the need of this special population group in non-judgmental and non-stigmatized manner.

The Minister of State (Health and Family Welfare), Sh Ashwini Kumar Choubey stated this in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha here today.

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MV/LK