Partnership for sexual health promotion in adolescent - Essay Example

The partnership approach is appropriate to PHC as it focuses on active involvement and self-care actions of individuals and community members in maintaining health and preventing disease. To adequately address sexual health promotion among adolescents, it is vital that a partnership gets fostered between community based organizations- CBO’s, schools, health practitioners, and health facilities. The ever-decreasing resources has made healthcare to become expensive for most individuals and communities.

Focus has shifted to individuals and communities to partake in their own prevention, maintenance, and promotion of health. The partnership approach is vital in promoting self-care action and the active involvement of individuals and communities in their own health promotion (Courtney et al, 1996). The partnership model seeks at bringing together different stakeholders for the sole purpose of promoting health. The partnership model emphasizes the formation of a new working relationship between the various stakeholders to promote health.

The stakeholders involved in the promotion of health within a community include; CBO’s, health practitioners such as nurses, health facilities such as clinics, and schools. To effectively promote sexual health, there is need to foster a partnership between these various stakeholders so as to develop a working relationship between them. Partnerships allow for definition of problems, setting priorities, designing solutions, and defining leadership roles among the partners. All partners need to be actively involved in the process of health promotion.

Changes occurring in health care delivery have called for new models motivated by leadership organizations. The partnership model originated from the recommendation of lay-professional partnerships that call for active participation of community members and not their passive participation (Bernal et al, 2004). Partnerships ensure that communities get to participate in achieving health by supporting self-care, community self-reliance, and developmental changes. The partnership model seeks at enhancing capabilities and empowerment of communities and individual to act on their own in health promotion.

The partnership model proposes that professionals should support the community and individuals to take effective action by themselves to promote health (Courtney et al, 1996). The partnership model describes the partners as active participants who get involved with the process of mutually determining actions and goals that promote health and well-being. The main goal of the partnership process is to encourage the capacity of individual and community partners to act more effectively on their own.

The partnership process calls for special commitment and responsibility among member partners. There are several steps in developing a partnership process. The steps involved include; exploring potential partners, inviting partners, and finally undertaking partnership action. Adolescent sexual health in the US gets characterized by alarming rates of sexually transmitted infections- STI’s (Irwin, 1997). A more holistic and ecological approach is necessary to promote sexual health among adolescents in the country.

This approach focuses on non-traditional partnerships between