PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Marni Sommer AU - Margaret L. Schmitt TI - Taking Stock: An Adaptable Research and Partnership Model for Developing Puberty Education in 10 Countries AID - 10.9745/GHSP-D-22-00498 DP - 2023 May 12 TA - Global Health: Science and Practice 4099 - http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/early/2023/05/12/GHSP-D-22-00498.short 4100 - http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/early/2023/05/12/GHSP-D-22-00498.full AB - Key FindingsPuberty books serve a valuable role in reaching youth in areas where educational systems do not deliver such content.It is essential to keep youth at the center of the content development process to produce meaningful and culturally acceptable books.More effort is needed to expand puberty content globally to ensure parents, educators, and youth-focused practitioners understand the value of puberty education and feel capacitated to convey it.Key ImplicationsProgram managers should consider using existing puberty books or developing new books in countries where they work to educate youth and build their confidence in their changing bodies.Policymakers should consider incorporating locally developed puberty books as government-approved supplementary readers into their educational systems to support healthy adolescent transitions, particularly in contexts that lack routine delivery of puberty content in schools.Educators should consider sharing puberty books with students in late primary and early secondary school, and possibly parents and caregivers, to facilitate learning and communication, reduce fear and shame on what can be sensitive topics, and encourage interest in reading.There is a growing global interest in puberty and early adolescence and the importance of ensuring young people have the information and support they need during this critical phase of transition in the life course. This article highlights an adaptable model being used to support the development of contextually appropriate puberty education, in the form of illustrated and often bilingual books, for early adolescent girls and boys in countries around the world. This youth-centered participatory research and design model, which relies on the generation of community and government partnerships, has been employed in 10 countries thus far. Valuable learning has been documented from various contexts, including the approach’s flexibility in adapting to the inputs of government and community members, incorporating local buy-in as a key ingredient for sustainability, using in-country experts for social and cultural appropriateness of illustrations and translations, and ensuring that the authentic youth voices captured through the participatory data collection and field-testing shape the educational content. The continuous integration of insights and perceptions of adults who influence young people’s lives into the development process is also essential to enabling the uptake of puberty content in each new country. Parents, educators, youth service providers, and government officials are often the gatekeepers to young adolescents receiving puberty content and are thus critical to the process. This review of more than a decade of experience using this model underscores the essentiality of 2 key components—local partnership and participatory data collection—and highlights the importance of flexible approaches that are adapted to the unique sociocultural and environmental conditions in each country context.