The Plan International’s global Parenting and Adolescent Life Skills (PALS) programme is developed for humanitarian teams who support adolescents and their caregivers in emergency and protracted crisis settings. The programme aims to equip adolescents aged 10 to 19 years and their caregivers with essential information, skills and resources to support adolescent health, safety and wellbeing in times of crisis.
The programme has been developed in close collaboration with adolescents and caregivers in Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Tanzania. Through local consultations held between May and July 2019, adolescents and their caregivers shared valuable insights about their needs and priorities in relation to their wellbeing, and their existing resources and capacities to cope with crisis situations. In August 2019, the first life skills and parenting sessions were tested in Northeast Nigeria together with younger adolescents (10 to 14 years), older adolescents (15 to 19 years) and their parents/caregivers, supported by frontline staff. The complete PALS programme package includes the following resources: Life Skills curriculum: 13 Life Skills Session plans including facilitation notes Parenting curriculum: 10 Parenting Session plans including facilitation notes Resources for the facilitator to use in the sessions Monitoring and evaluation tools for the facilitator to use before, during and after the sessions Laughter and Play Manual with the games and creative exercises Implementation guide Tools to support implementation Training package with online and in-person learning modules