Research-driven frameworks and expert guidance for governments, NGOs, parents, and practitioners — building strong foundations from birth through adolescence so every young person can flourish.
Before designing any intervention, you must understand the current reality. A rigorous situation analysis reveals where children and adolescents are in their development, what gaps exist, and what is going well — providing the evidence base for action.
Identify the age groups, geographic scope, and socio-economic context. Use existing data from DHS, MICS, and national surveys to understand demographic trends. Consider rural/urban divides, ethnic and linguistic diversity, and displacement or migration patterns.
Evaluate children across key domains: physical health and nutrition, cognitive development and learning outcomes, social-emotional wellbeing, protective environment, and participation. The ARISE Network framework identifies seven measurable domains: health awareness, nutrition, mental health, sexual and reproductive health, substance use, healthcare utilization, and socio-demographics.
Identify what services, programmes, and policies currently exist for children and adolescents. Map them against developmental needs by age group. Where are the gaps? Are services reaching the most vulnerable? Is there continuity from early childhood through adolescence?
A situation analysis is incomplete without the voices of young people themselves. Use age-appropriate participatory methods: focus groups, community mapping, photovoice, digital surveys. Article 12 of the CRC requires that children's views are given due weight.
Evaluate the readiness of homes, schools, and communities (see Readiness section). Examine legislation, budgets, institutional capacities, and coordination mechanisms. Identify both strengths to build on and barriers to address.
Synthesize findings into a clear picture of where children stand. Disaggregate by age, gender, disability, location, and socio-economic status. Identify quick wins and longer-term systemic changes. Develop a theory of change that links analysis to action — and build monitoring indicators to track progress.
National averages hide the most vulnerable. A situation analysis must disaggregate data by age (using at least 5-year cohorts within 0-24), gender, disability status, geographic location (rural/urban/peri-urban), ethnicity, migration status, and socio-economic quintile. The Lancet Commission and SDG indicators explicitly require disaggregation — because what you cannot see, you cannot address.
Our Situation Analysis Template provides a step-by-step methodology with guiding notes and data collection checklists. Pair it with the Life Course Investment Visualizer to map services and gaps across every age group.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) establishes that children are rights-holders — not passive objects of protection but subjects with entitlements. Budgets must reflect these rights through timely, cumulative investment.
All rights must be recognized for every child without discrimination on any grounds — following the child across all settings including homes, schools, health facilities, and across borders.
The best interests of the child should be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children, including budget allocation, policy design, and programme implementation.
"Development" encompasses physical, mental, spiritual, moral, psychological, and social development — requiring holistic, rights-based investment across all dimensions.
Every child capable of forming a view has the right to have that view given due weight. Adolescents must be actively involved in decisions about programmes, services, and policies affecting them.
Children have the right to the highest attainable standard of health. This requires access to preventive, curative, and rehabilitative services tailored to their developmental stage.
Education shall develop the child's personality, talents, and abilities to their fullest potential — including preparation for responsible life, respect for human rights, and understanding of the natural environment.
When investments are not made at the right time in a child's development, gaps accumulate. By age 9-10, many children have already fallen behind — lacking foundational literacy, social-emotional skills, or healthy behaviours. The cost of remediation far exceeds the cost of prevention. A life course approach ensures investments are sequential, cumulative, and aligned with developmental windows of opportunity.
Our Budget Assessment Template helps you analyse government expenditure on children and adolescents — with budget classification frameworks, child-focused tracking sheets, and investment case builders with ROI frameworks.
Thriving does not happen by chance. It requires a deliberate architecture of policies, appropriately timed across the life course, supported by evidence, sustained by budgets, and strengthened through the capacity of those who care for children every day.
Policies must be informed by data collected at the right moments — not just national averages but disaggregated evidence that reveals who is being left behind, when, and why. The situation analysis is the starting point; monitoring and evaluation sustain the feedback loop.
Policies without budgets are aspirations. Child-responsive budgeting means tracking what governments actually spend on children, ensuring allocations match developmental needs at each stage, and building the investment case with evidence of returns ($17 for every $1 invested).
Policies reach children through people — parents, teachers, health workers, social workers, community leaders. Without investing in the capacity and wellbeing of caregivers, even the best policies fail at the point of delivery. Training must be continuous, not one-off.
Child-friendly justice is not a separate system but a cross-cutting principle: restorative over punitive approaches, diversion from formal proceedings, legal representation, age-appropriate communication, and protection of children as victims, witnesses, and those in conflict with the law.
WHO and UNICEF's joint strategy for child and adolescent health across the European Region. Identifies five priority areas: strategic investment in child health, access to quality care, protection from commercial and digital harms, multisectoral collaboration, and strengthened accountability through data and monitoring.
WHO-UNICEF CAHW StrategyDeveloped through ECDAN (Early Childhood Development Action Network), this framework provides a comprehensive foundation for parenting support policy and advocacy. It maps the evidence for universal parenting programmes across the life course, connecting early childhood nurturing care with sustained family support through adolescence. A valuable resource for governments and organisations designing integrated parenting policies.
A policy written but not implemented is a promise broken. Effective advocacy connects evidence to decision-makers, translates data into compelling narratives, monitors implementation, and holds duty-bearers accountable. Media engagement amplifies the message. Young people's voices add legitimacy and urgency. And the loop closes when monitoring data feeds back into policy revision — creating a cycle of continuous improvement.
Our templates give you the tools to move from analysis to action — the Budget Assessment Template for tracking child-focused spending, the Advocacy & Communication Template for influencing policy, and the Situation Analysis Template for building the evidence base.
Synthesizing the latest global research on adolescent development and wellbeing — from brain science to social-emotional learning, mental health to educational outcomes.
The adolescent brain undergoes dramatic remodelling. Synaptic pruning and myelination create a critical window for learning, but also vulnerability. The Second Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health (2025) highlights how neuroplasticity during ages 10-24 makes this period both an opportunity and a risk factor.
Read the Lancet CommissionNearly 4 in 10 adolescents experience feelings of sadness or hopelessness. While some indicators have improved since 2021, mental health remains a crisis — with female and LGBTQ+ youth disproportionately affected. Early intervention starting in childhood is key to building resilience.
Adolescent Health in 2025WHO's life course approach recognizes that health trajectories are shaped by experiences across all life stages — from before birth to old age. Evidence from biomedicine, epidemiology, and social sciences confirms that early childhood and adolescence are critical and sensitive periods that shape lifelong outcomes.
WHO Life Course ApproachWHO and UNICEF's life skills framework identifies core psychosocial competencies: decision-making, problem solving, creative thinking, critical thinking, communication, self-awareness, empathy, coping with emotions, and coping with stress. These skills are foundational across cultures.
WHO Life Skills FrameworkEarly childhood interventions yield high returns — the HighScope Perry Preschool program and Carolina Abecedarian Project demonstrate long-term effects on educational attainment, occupational outcomes, and reduced crime. But these effects are mediated through adolescent mechanisms, making continued investment essential.
Contribution of Adolescence to the Life CourseSearch Institute's framework identifies 40 positive supports and strengths young people need to thrive — 20 external assets (support, empowerment, boundaries, constructive use of time) and 20 internal assets (commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies, positive identity). Research with millions of young people shows the more assets present, the greater the resilience and thriving.
Search Institute — Developmental AssetsNobel laureate James Heckman's research proves that investing in early childhood development generates substantial returns — in education, health, and economic productivity. The earlier the investment, the greater the return. His work provides the economic case for the life course approach.
Heckman EquationThe Five Cs model — Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character, and Caring — reframes adolescent development from deficit prevention to strength building. When young people thrive across these dimensions, they become active contributors to their families, schools, and communities.
Positive Youth Development ResearchHarvard's EASEL Lab created this comprehensive platform to navigate the landscape of social-emotional learning frameworks. Compare programmes, understand the Five Cs model, and find evidence-based approaches that match your context — essential for anyone designing youth development interventions.
Explore SEL — HarvardDr. Cyndi Burnett's platform empowers educators to infuse creative thinking into every classroom. Using the Five-Point Star model, it provides practical resources, training, and curriculum tools for building creative capacity in children — a critical but often overlooked dimension of development.
Creativity and EducationA curated collection of TED talks exploring child wellbeing from multiple perspectives — neuroscience, education, public health, and community development. These short, powerful presentations translate complex research into accessible insights for practitioners, parents, and policymakers.
TED: Child WellbeingTED speakers illuminate the adolescent experience — from the neuroscience of the teenage brain to the social dynamics shaping identity, risk, and resilience. An excellent starting point for understanding the unique opportunities and challenges of this critical developmental period.
TED: Adolescent DevelopmentA life course approach recognizes that development is cumulative. Each stage builds on the last. Investments must be timely, sequential, and sustained to prevent children from falling off track by age 9-10 and to prepare them for adolescence.
Use the Life Course Investment Visualizer to map programmes, budgets, and gaps across every age band — from prenatal through youth transition. See where support is strong and where it falls behind.
The Gender Equity Life Course Planner maps what equal treatment looks like at every age band — from bias-free play in infancy through equal pay expectations in young adulthood. Start building equity before inequality takes root.
Development is cumulative and continuous. A child who receives strong early foundations but loses support in middle childhood or adolescence can fall off track. Sustained, appropriately timed investment across the entire life course is what separates thriving societies from those that leave potential unrealised.
Every $1 invested in early childhood yields up to $17 in returns. But these returns only materialise when investment continues through middle childhood, adolescence, and the transition to adulthood. Gaps at any stage erode earlier gains — like building a bridge and stopping before it reaches the other side.
Governments must track what they actually spend on children — not just what they allocate. Child-responsive budgeting disaggregates public spending by age group, revealing whether resources match developmental needs at each stage. Many countries over-invest in crisis response and under-invest in prevention.
Failure to invest in adolescent development costs societies dearly — in lost productivity, increased health expenditure, higher crime rates, and intergenerational poverty. The World Bank estimates that human capital losses from poor education and health alone amount to trillions of dollars globally each year.
The most vulnerable moments are transitions — from home to school, primary to secondary, school to work, childhood to adulthood. These are the points where support systems often break down. Continuous investment means bridging these transitions with targeted programmes, mentoring, and social protection.
Our Budget Assessment Template helps you track child-focused public spending and identify gaps. Use the Life Course Investment Visualizer to see exactly where investments are concentrated and where they fall short across every age band.
A child's wellbeing is inseparable from the readiness of the environments around them. The more prepared and supportive the home, school, and community, the more likely children and adolescents are to stay on a positive developmental track.
Responsive parenting, emotional warmth, consistent routines, and positive discipline. Research shows that responsive caregiving in the first 1000 days predicts cognitive and social outcomes through adolescence.
Sufficient resources for nutrition, healthcare, and education. Social protection programmes (cash transfers, school feeding) can compensate for poverty-related risks.
A home free from violence, abuse, and exploitation. Parental mental health and substance use directly impact child wellbeing and developmental trajectories.
Books, stimulation, conversation, and engagement with education. Parental involvement in learning is one of the strongest predictors of school readiness and academic success.
Trained teachers who understand child development, use inclusive pedagogy, and can integrate life skills into the curriculum. Teacher wellbeing matters — stressed, unsupported teachers cannot nurture children.
Schools free from violence, bullying, discrimination, and corporal punishment. Physical infrastructure that is accessible, with adequate sanitation, especially for adolescent girls.
Curriculum that goes beyond academics to develop social-emotional competencies, critical thinking, and health literacy. Experiential learning methods, not just didactic teaching.
School feeding programmes, health screenings, mental health support, and referral pathways. Schools as a platform for reaching children with essential services.
Community attitudes toward gender equality, child marriage, education for girls, discipline practices, and adolescent participation. Norms shape what is possible for individual families and children.
Accessible health facilities, youth-friendly services, recreation spaces, and community-based protection mechanisms. Distance and quality of services determine whether rights are realized in practice.
Livelihoods for young people, vocational training, mentorship programmes, and pathways from school to productive employment. A community without opportunity pushes adolescents toward risk.
Local governance that prioritizes children, community-based child protection, safe public spaces, and responsive justice systems. Local leaders as champions for adolescent development.
When homes, schools, and communities are all well-prepared, children have the highest probability of staying on track. When even one layer is weak, risk accumulates. A child in a nurturing home but an unsafe community faces different challenges than one in a supportive community but a neglectful home — but both need targeted support. The situation analysis (above) helps identify which layer needs strengthening, and the life course framework guides when to intervene.
The 40 Developmental Assets framework identifies the research-based building blocks young people need to thrive. Twenty external assets — support, empowerment, boundaries, and constructive use of time — map directly onto the readiness of homes, schools, and communities. Twenty internal assets — commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies, and positive identity — reflect the strengths young people develop when those environments are strong. Over three decades of research with millions of young people worldwide shows a clear pattern: the more assets present, the more likely young people are to thrive and the less likely they are to engage in high-risk behaviours.
Explore the Framework at Search InstituteOur Community Initiative Template walks you through readiness assessment, stakeholder engagement, programme design with logic models, and sustainability planning — from needs assessment to implementation.
Based on WHO, UNICEF, and Harvard's EASEL frameworks — core psychosocial competencies that enable children and adolescents to deal effectively with the demands of everyday life.
Ability to assess situations, weigh options, consider consequences, and make constructive choices about personal behaviour and social interactions.
Ages 6+Capacity to identify challenges, generate possible solutions, evaluate alternatives, and implement effective strategies for resolution.
Ages 6+Ability to analyse information and experiences objectively, recognize influences from peers, media, and culture, and form independent judgments.
Ages 8+Capacity to think beyond conventional boundaries, explore alternatives, and develop innovative approaches to challenges and opportunities.
Ages 4+Recognizing one's own character, strengths, weaknesses, desires, and emotions. The foundation for developing empathy and understanding others.
Ages 3+Ability to recognize, name, and manage emotions in oneself and others. Understanding how emotions influence behaviour and learning healthy regulation strategies.
Ages 4+Recognizing sources of stress, understanding its effects on health and behaviour, and developing strategies to manage stress constructively.
Ages 8+Capacity to recover from setbacks, adapt to change, and persist through difficulties. Built through supportive relationships and gradual exposure to manageable challenges.
Ages 3+Expressing oneself clearly and appropriately — verbally and non-verbally. Includes active listening, assertiveness, and the ability to ask for help.
Ages 3+The ability to understand and share the feelings of others, even those who may be very different. Essential for building tolerance and respecting diversity.
Ages 4+Building and maintaining healthy relationships with family, peers, and community members. Includes negotiation, conflict resolution, and cooperation.
Ages 5+Capacity to negotiate with others, manage conflict peacefully, and resist peer pressure and harmful social influences while maintaining relationships.
Ages 8+Life skills should be woven throughout existing subjects — not isolated in a single class. Health education, social studies, literature, and physical education all offer natural integration points.
FrameworkSkills are learned through practice, not lecture. Role-playing, group discussions, debates, community projects, and peer education are essential teaching methods.
MethodEducators need specific training in facilitation, creating safe spaces, and handling sensitive topics. Their own social-emotional competence models healthy behaviour for students.
EnablerLife skills cannot be assessed through traditional exams. Use portfolio assessment, peer feedback, self-reflection journals, and observation-based evaluation.
MethodChildren learn most from observing their caregivers. Parents who demonstrate healthy emotion regulation, communication, and problem-solving teach these skills implicitly.
All agesOpen-ended questions, active listening, and shared reflection build thinking skills better than instruction. "What would you do?" is more powerful than "You should."
Ages 4+Age-appropriate chores, family decision-making participation, and managing small budgets build autonomy, planning, and self-regulation in a safe environment.
Ages 5+Parents as partners in navigating online spaces — setting boundaries together, discussing digital citizenship, and building critical media consumption skills.
Ages 7+Our Life Skills Programme Template includes a WHO/UNICEF-aligned curriculum mapping guide, session planning templates with learning objectives, age-appropriate activity designs for ages 6-18, assessment rubrics, and a monitoring and evaluation framework.
Creativity is not a luxury or an extracurricular add-on — it is a core developmental capacity. Creative thinking enables children to solve problems, adapt to change, express themselves, and imagine better futures. Yet it remains one of the most under-invested dimensions of child and adolescent development.
Research consistently shows that creative thinking strengthens cognitive flexibility, emotional resilience, and social problem-solving. Children who develop creative capacity are better equipped to navigate uncertainty, collaborate across differences, and contribute original solutions to community challenges.
Creativity and EducationThe Five-Point Star model offers a practical framework: understand creativity, embody it, support an environment for it, infuse creative thinking into content, and teach creativity directly. This is not about art class alone — it is about how every subject can become a space for original thinking.
The Creative Problem Solving (CPS) method — developed over six decades — teaches structured divergent and convergent thinking. When young people learn to generate ideas without premature judgment and then evaluate them systematically, they develop a lifelong capacity for innovation and adaptive thinking.
Creative capacity exists in every child, regardless of background. But access to creative learning opportunities is deeply unequal. Children in under-resourced communities are least likely to have access to arts education, maker spaces, and pedagogies that nurture original thinking — precisely the children who would benefit most.
Our Life Skills Programme Template includes creative thinking modules aligned with the WHO/UNICEF framework — helping you design sessions that build creative capacity alongside other essential life skills.
Children and adolescents are not spectators in their own development. When they are genuinely involved — in their homes, schools, and communities — outcomes improve for everyone. But meaningful involvement requires intentional design, not performative gestures.
Roger Hart's Ladder of Participation reminds us that not all involvement is equal. The lowest rungs — manipulation, decoration, tokenism — use children's presence without honouring their agency. True participation begins when young people understand the purpose, have genuine influence, and share in decisions. The goal is not to create "mini politicians" but to nurture capable, confident individuals who can contribute authentically in the spaces that matter most to them.
The family is the first and most influential setting. Meaningful involvement starts with being heard.
Schools are where children first encounter structured institutions. How they participate here shapes their civic identity.
Communities benefit directly when young people contribute. This is participation with purpose, rooted in local reality.
Children must understand what they are participating in, why, and what will happen with their input. They must be free to withdraw at any time without consequence.
Methods must match developmental capacity. A 7-year-old contributes through drawing and storytelling; a 16-year-old through focus groups and data analysis. Both are equally valid.
Participation must reach beyond the articulate and the advantaged. Children with disabilities, out-of-school youth, girls, and marginalised groups must be proactively included.
Adult duty-bearers must ensure child safeguarding, informed consent, and protection from exploitation. Participation must never expose children to harm or retaliation.
The most damaging form of tokenism is asking for input and ignoring it. Young people must see how their contributions influenced decisions — or honest explanations when they could not.
The goal is to strengthen young people's ability to participate independently over time — through skills training, mentoring, and gradually increasing responsibility.
The right of children to be heard is not optional — it is a legal obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by 196 countries. Article 12 requires that children who are capable of forming views are assured the right to express those views freely, and that those views are given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity. This applies not just in courts and formal proceedings but in every setting that affects children's lives — the home, the school, and the community.
Our Community Initiative Template includes youth participation frameworks, intergenerational dialogue guides, and tools for designing age-appropriate involvement across home, school, and community settings.
Parenting is a developmental journey too. Building your own skills at each stage helps you support your child's growth — from the first days through the teenage years and beyond.
ECDAN's Global Conceptual Framework for Universal Parenting Support maps the evidence for sustained family support across the life course. Essential reading for policy and advocacy.
Explore the FrameworkParenting is where gender equity begins. Our Gender Equity Life Course Planner helps parents understand what equal treatment looks like at every developmental stage.
Explore the PlannerDigital media and technology are now central to adolescent life. Understanding both the opportunities and the risks is essential for parents, educators, and policymakers navigating this rapidly evolving landscape.
Digital platforms democratize access to educational content, courses, and mentorship — especially valuable for adolescents in remote or underserved areas where quality schools may not be available.
Online communities can provide vital peer support, especially for marginalized youth (LGBTQ+, disabled, geographically isolated). Social media enables self-expression, identity exploration, and belonging.
Digital tools empower young people to organize, advocate, and participate in democratic processes. Youth-led movements on climate, equity, and rights are increasingly digital-first.
Apps and online platforms can deliver mental health support at scale — chatbots, peer support forums, and crisis resources — reaching adolescents who may not access formal services.
Platforms for music, art, writing, and video creation give adolescents tools for self-expression, skill development, and even economic opportunity through creative economies.
Nearly 4 in 10 adolescents experience sadness or hopelessness. Research links excessive social media use (3+ hours/day) to increased anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Approximately 24.4% of adolescents meet criteria for social media addiction.
Online harassment, cyberstalking, and sexual exploitation are growing threats. Cyberbullying leads to reduced academic performance, social withdrawal, and in severe cases, self-harm. Girls are disproportionately affected.
Algorithmically curated content promoting unrealistic beauty standards drives body dysmorphic disorder and disordered eating, especially among girls. Many teens tie self-worth to online validation through likes and followers.
The dopaminergic reward pathways activated by social media mirror addiction patterns. Excessive use is associated with attention deficits, impulsivity, and reduced capacity for sustained focus and deep learning.
Adolescents frequently exposed to depictions of alcohol and drug use on social media are at higher risk of engaging in these behaviours, driven by peer influence and the desire for social acceptance.
Regulate age-appropriate content, require transparency on algorithms targeting youth, mandate digital literacy in school curricula, and invest in research on long-term effects.
Set boundaries collaboratively with your teen, model healthy digital habits, maintain open conversations about online experiences, and use monitoring as guidance rather than surveillance.
Integrate digital citizenship and media literacy across subjects, train teachers on online safety, establish protocols for cyberbullying response, and create device-free learning spaces.
Our Advocacy & Communication Template provides stakeholder power-interest mapping, key message development worksheets, evidence-to-policy translation guides, and campaign timeline tools to help you influence policy and public opinion.
Evidence-based programmes that have demonstrated measurable impact on adolescent development outcomes — with key lessons for replication and adaptation.
Integration of competencias ciudadanas (citizenship competencies) across the national education system, combining social-emotional learning with civic participation. Resulted in measurable improvements in school climate and reduced violence.
Scaled nationally Education sectorPart of a 13-country study examining how gender norms form among 10-14 year olds in peri-urban communities. Paired longitudinal research with gender-transformative interventions to shift harmful norms early before they solidify.
Evidence-based Gender normsA multi-stakeholder framework developed with government, civil society, and academia. Links core life skills to educational outcomes, employment, civic engagement, and empowerment — with pathways through formal education, non-formal settings, and workplace.
Multi-pathway Life skillsJoint strategy for child and adolescent health across the European Region. Introduces dual-level accountability (Member States + WHO/UNICEF), adolescent participation through a Regional Youth Advisory Board, and equity-weighted budgeting models.
Regional strategy Multi-sectoralLandmark studies demonstrating 13% annual return on investment from high-quality early childhood programmes. Effects on adult outcomes are mediated through adolescent mechanisms — higher attainment, beneficial social connections, fewer behavioural risks.
Longitudinal evidence Cost-effectiveNew guidance proposing a minimum of 17 scheduled routine visits from birth to age 19, covering growth monitoring, developmental screening, immunization, and anticipatory guidance. A practical framework for implementing life course care through existing health systems.
WHO/UNICEF Health systemsProgrammes without evaluation are experiments without learning. Monitoring and evaluation generate the evidence that tells us whether goals are being achieved, where challenges lie, and what needs to change. Without it, we are investing blind.
Every programme begins with assumptions — about what children need, what interventions will work, and what outcomes to expect. Evaluation tests those assumptions against reality. It reveals what is working, for whom, and under what conditions. It provides the evidence to scale what works, fix what doesn't, and stop what causes harm.
Monitoring is the continuous tracking of programme activities and outputs — are we doing what we planned? Evaluation is the periodic, deeper assessment of outcomes and impact — is what we're doing making a difference? Both are essential. Monitoring without evaluation tracks activity but misses meaning. Evaluation without monitoring lacks the data it needs.
Good indicators are specific, measurable, and meaningful to the people the programme serves. They go beyond counting participants to measuring real change — in knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviours. Disaggregation by age, gender, disability, and location reveals who is benefiting and who is being left behind.
The purpose of evaluation is not to produce reports that sit on shelves. It is to generate evidence that informs decisions — about programme design, budget allocation, policy direction, and accountability. When evaluation data flows back into planning, it creates a cycle of continuous improvement that strengthens every aspect of the life course approach.
The most meaningful evaluations involve the people the programme is designed to serve. Children, adolescents, parents, and community members bring perspectives that external evaluators cannot. Participatory evaluation builds local ownership, strengthens accountability, and produces findings that are more relevant and more likely to be used.
Evaluation is not only about proving success — it is equally about understanding failure. Why did a programme not reach its goals? Were the assumptions wrong? Was implementation weak? Did the context change? Honest evaluation of challenges is often more valuable than celebration of success, because it is where learning happens.
Better Evaluation is a global knowledge platform offering practical frameworks, methods, and step-by-step guidance for designing, managing, and using evaluations. Whether you are planning your first programme evaluation or strengthening an existing M&E system, this is the place to start.
Our Situation Analysis Template includes a monitoring and evaluation planning section with indicator frameworks, data collection schedules, and reporting templates aligned with results-based management principles.
A space for practitioners, policymakers, parents, and researchers to discuss adolescent development topics in a structured, moderated environment. Discussions are scheduled around specific themes with clear guidelines to ensure respectful, productive dialogue.
Each month, the editorial team announces 2-3 discussion topics based on current research, emerging issues, or community requests.
Practitioners and interested participants register for specific topics. A brief code of conduct is agreed to before joining any discussion.
Discussions run for a defined period (typically 1-2 weeks) with trained moderators ensuring quality, respect, and adherence to community guidelines.
Key insights and recommendations from each discussion are synthesized and published as a community resource, building a growing knowledge base.
How can schools and families in developing countries navigate digital technology when access is uneven and digital literacy support is limited?
Sharing evidence and experience on effective programmes targeting the critical early adolescent period, when gender norms solidify and mental health challenges emerge.
Practitioners share experiences of leading situation analyses in different countries — challenges, methodologies, and how findings translated into policy action.
Key publications, toolkits, data, and training materials for adolescent development practitioners — curated from the world's leading institutions.
Key research papers, commission reports, strategy documents, and policy briefs from WHO, UNICEF, The Lancet, and academic institutions.
40+ resourcesPractical implementation guides for life skills programmes, adolescent health services, and rights-based programming in diverse contexts.
25+ toolkitsInteractive data on adolescent health indicators, education outcomes, and development metrics — searchable by country, region, and theme.
15+ datasetsCourse modules, facilitator guides, and professional development resources for teachers, health workers, and community practitioners.
20+ coursesDirectory of organizations working in adolescent development globally — UN agencies, international NGOs, research centres, and grassroots networks.
50+ partnersConceptual frameworks, theories of change, logical models, and programme design templates for evidence-based adolescent programming.
15+ frameworksAdolescent development, child protection, education, and health programming worldwide.
"My Body, My Life, My World" — adolescent and youth strategy advancing rights-based, life-course approaches.
Global standards for adolescent health, mental health, and life course approach frameworks.
The foundational UN treaty on children's rights — civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights for every child, adopted in 1989.
Developmental Assets Framework — 40 positive supports and strengths young people need to succeed.
Caribbean Youth Development Action Plan, HRD 2030 Strategy, and the Declaration of Paramaribo on the Future of Youth.
Social Development Division — child poverty, social protection, and early childhood policies for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Whether you are a government planning a national programme, an NGO designing a community intervention, or an organization seeking to strengthen your work with children and adolescents — we can connect you with experienced practitioners who understand the field.
Assess the developmental status of children and adolescents in your country or region with rigorous, evidence-based methodology.
Design life skills programmes, community initiatives, and youth-centred interventions grounded in international best practices.
Build the skills of your teams in adolescent development, child rights programming, monitoring and evaluation, and advocacy.
Strengthen advocacy for child-friendly budgets, policy reform, and investment cases that put children and adolescents at the centre.
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Our professionally designed templates give you step-by-step frameworks for situation analysis, budget assessment, programme design, and more — with guiding notes and evidence-collection tools built in.
Interactive tools and professionally designed templates with guiding notes, evidence collection frameworks, and analytical questions. Built from decades of field experience to help you analyse, design, plan, and advocate for children and adolescents.
A comprehensive guide for assessing the developmental status of children and adolescents in any country or region.
Analyse government budgets for children and adolescents — identify investment gaps and build the case for increased allocation.
Design and implement a life skills programme for schools or community settings, with session plans and facilitation guides.
Plan and launch a community-based initiative for children and adolescents — from needs assessment to implementation and sustainability.
Build a compelling advocacy and communication strategy to influence policy and public opinion on adolescent development.
Design a robust monitoring and evaluation system for your programme — from indicator selection to data collection, analysis, and evidence-based reporting.
Get all six templates plus both interactive tools at a significant discount. Everything you need to analyse, design, plan, advocate, and evaluate.