Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice in Youth Partnership: A Conversation with Lore Remmerie

Lore Remmerie
Institute of Family and Sexuality Studies (KU Leuven)

Interviewed by:
Yemurai Nyoni, Monitoring and Evaluation Associate at the YIELD Hub

Lore Remmerie is a 27-year-old PhD researcher working at the Institute of Family and Sexuality Studies (KU Leuven) in Belgium. She is a member of the YIELD Hub’s Theory of Change Working Group. Lore’s research is focused on understanding how participatory methods in research with young people can lead to meaningful outcomes.

Over the course of the interview, Lore takes us through her experience in contributing to the creation of the new Theory of Change on Youth Partnership in AYSRHR. She also shares her aspirations on how youth partnership can help improve outcomes in sexual and reproductive health and rights, and how different organisations can use the new ToC resource.

What inspired you to join the ToC on Youth Partnership in AYSRHR working group?

“During an internship with YIELD Hub and Rutgers two years ago, I was asked to make some suggestions about how we can measure meaningful youth involvement and reflect on the previous YIELD Hub ToC. It made me reflect on questions like, “What is meaningful youth involvement”, and taught me the importance of evaluating youth partnerships, to be able to improve them. This work with YIELD Hub inspired my PhD. I felt that the things I would be learning during my PhD could also be meaningful for the development of the ToC. Joining the ToC working group felt like a natural step, and a way to give back to the team that had contributed so much to my PhD journey.”

What was your role in the working group, and how did you contribute to creating the ToC and indicator guide?

“Together with the rest of the working group, I reflected on the content and lay-out of the ToC, as well as its clarity and completeness. I mainly focused on the clarity of concepts. When talking about youth or community involvement, we tend to use very big and abstract words (e.g. empowerment), which I feel does not help us improve our youth partnerships. To be able to improve youth partnerships we need to break down abstract concepts and make them easily applicable.”

Youth partnership seems like a new or different concept from ideas such as youth participation and youth engagement. From your understanding, please explain what youth partnership in AYSRHR is and how it links with broader youth movements.

“To me, youth partnership means that adults are able to work together with young people, creating the right environments for them to really share their voices and have an impact on our AYSRHR work. Within the broader youth movement, youth partnerships refers to what happens when young people and adults can connect, bringing their strengths together to improve AYSRHR”

What role can youth partnership play in improving AYSRHR outcomes?

“I think young people have a lot of ideas. They are very innovative and creative, but do not always have the opportunities to act on those ideas. I believe that connecting young people to organizations that can bring their ideas into practice will increase innovation in our research, programs and advocacy. It will also introduce solutions that are relevant to young peoples lived experiences.

Speaking from a research perspective, I think we have adopted a lot of innovative methods in the AYSRHR field that are robust, rigorous, and based on work in other research fields. AYSRHR is a very sensitive topic, and we need to be very innovative to create research environments that make young people feel comfortable talking about these topics. I feel we really need young people’s help so that we can rethink our research methods and conduct research that is both comfortable for them and relevant to their lives.

Youth partnerships, if done in the right way, can also be very important for young people themselves, as they develop skills and knowledge about AYSRHR, but also about research, programming and advocacy”

What is the purpose of a theory of change on youth partnership in AYSRHR? Is it necessary? Is it important?

“Youth partnerships can lead to important outcomes. If done in the right way. But what is the right way? Although we have learned a lot over the past years, e.g. what good and bad youth partnerships can look like, there is so much more to learn. The ToC captures important lessons about what we have learned about good youth partnerships and can also serve as a tool for continuous evaluation and learning”

What makes this ToC different from other tools in the AYSRHR field? What makes it unique?

“The ToC demonstrates the importance of youth partnerships, but also their complexity. Youth partnerships are not something you just do because it is a cool buzzword in your funding proposal. They really need to be thought through, to be able to leverage meaningful outcomes. The ToC allows researchers, programmers and other partners to cautiously think about the complexity of youth partnerships whilst also offering a practical way of breaking down the different components of youth partnerships. It helps different organisations to think about how youth partnerships can be organized in a ‘good’ way”

What are the current gaps in measuring change in youth partnership in AYSRHR, and how does the indicator guide help address this? What gaps remain?

“I think evaluations of youth partnerships are often not done. We are often too focused on the other outcomes of our projects, and don’t have the money for follow-up, especially long-term follow-up of these partnerships. Evaluating youth partnerships is often not part of our project proposals. I feel this ToC can inspire researchers especially, to consider incorporating some of or all its elements in their own work”

How can individuals and organisations working in the AYSRHR field best use this new ToC and indicator guide?

“I think firstly, it helps to acknowledge the complexity of youth partnerships. It helps to not just jump into it, without thinking it through.

Secondly, it can inspire individuals to bring in some (or all) aspects of evaluating youth partnerships into their work”

The future of health, in particular AYSRHR, is being reshaped by the work and insights of researchers like Lore Remmerie. Evaluators, researchers, programmers and other stakeholders can better guide their work on youth partnership thanks to the creation of tools like the Theory of Change on Youth Partnership in AYSRHR that have been pulled together by Lore and her colleagues.

The new Theory of Change on Youth Partnership in AYSRHR has been released with a set of guidelines that include sample indicators for use in tracking changes in youth partnership at individual level, within the SRHR ecosystem, and in society. You can access the ToC and its related resources here: