National Consultancy: Formative Assessment Social Work Interventions/Programme in Hospitals with focus on children’s services including prevention of child abuse

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National Consultancy: Formative Assessment of Social Work Interventions Programme in Medical Settings with Focus on Children’s Services Including Prevention of Child Abuse

CONTRACT PROPOSED DURATION: 365 days

How can you make a difference? 

BACKGROUND

Child abuse is a global public health problem with serious life-long consequences for children’s mental and physical health, academic performance and social life. Beyond the health, social and educational consequences of child abuse, there is an economic impact, including costs of hospitalization, mental health treatment, child welfare, and longer-term health costs. From the right-based perspective, child abuse is a significant violation of fundamental human rights, including the right to life, right to protection from all forms of violence, and the right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health.

The social service workforce plays a key role in supporting individuals and communities in addressing social and other determinants of health. Given the multidimensional nature of child abuse which calls for multifaced response across various sectors, social workers of health/medical settings are in a unique position to prevent and identify the cases of child abuse and also coordinate across health, legal, social and protection sectors for a holistic and integrated care and protection interventions through case management and referral.

Social work has more than 60 years of history in Iran. Despite its long history, the value of social work interventions and its role in providing a holistic health intervention has not been well defined in the overall health system yet. Findings of the UNICEF-supported evaluation of Prevention of Child Abuse Programme in PHC settings also highlighted the gap of social interventions including case management, follow-up and referral. The study also recommended integration of social work interventions alongside health-related services in prevention of child abuse programme. In view of the above, Ministry of Health and Medical Education has moved towards professionalization of the social work interventions in the medical settings through formalizing social workers’ job descriptions and standardization of its services through development of specialized protocols and training of the relevant professionals.

In line with these efforts, the Child Protection unit and Social Work Office of MoHME has initiated a new partnership in 2023, aiming at capacity enhancement of the medical settings/hospitals in providing child abuse prevention services.

Implementation of this study contributes to Key Intervention 3, i.e. support advocacy for mainstreaming social and protection services for children and their families in medical centers.

OBJECTIVE / SCOPE OF WORK

UNICEF and MoHME are intended to conduct a formative assessment of the current social work programme in the medical settings aimed at the identification of gaps, strengths and weaknesses of the current programme with special focus on children’s services. The result will also support monitoring of the programme progress in view of its further alignment with the designed programme goals and outcomes. It also contributes to evidence generation of the cost-effectiveness of the programme as a potential policy advocacy effort to demonstrate the value and contribution of the social workers/interventions for further expansion of the services in both health and medical settings. Feedback from beneficiaries (i.e. children and their families) will also inform quality improvement, relevance and acceptability of the services.

The following key objectives are set for this consultancy:

–             Assess effectiveness, and relevance of the current social work intervention programme in the hospitals/medical settings with special focus on children’s services including prevention of child abuse;

–             Provide evidence on cost-effectiveness and value of the programme;

–             Provide recommendations/lessons learnt for revision/quality enhancement of the services;

–             Generate evidence for better programme and policy advice for expansion/professionalization of social work intervention in health system.

The scope of the work includes all social work interventions currently provided in the public hospitals/medical settings particularly children’s services. The Office of the Social Work Interventions (MoHME) is both the responsible government partner and main audience of this formative assessment alongside MoHME’s policy and decision makers and children/ their families/caregivers as the ultimate beneficiaries of the social work services in the health system.

METHODOLOGY

The consultant is expected to deploy required quantitative and qualitative methods in addition to the desk review for conducting this formative assessment. It includes clear elaboration on research/assessment questions which guides the study in line with the above-mentioned objectives. Given the nature of this assessment, the initial proposal must include a section identifying anticipated/actual ethical issues throughout the assessment as well as the measures and methods adopted to address or mitigate against these issues in line with UNICEF’s standard guideline on ethical standards.

ACTIVITIES, DELIVERABLES AND TIMELINES, PLUS BUDGET PER DELIVERABLE

CONDITIONS OF WORK

The consultant shall use her/his own facilities to manage the work, but, where circumstances demand otherwise, shall be allowed to make use of available UNICEF office space, computer and internet facilities with prior notification and arrangement with the supervisor and UNICEF Admin/ICT. The provision of these facilities by UNICEF shall be subject to their availability.

Consultancy fees include the costs of travel, inter alia, flight tickets, accommodation, and any other travel expenses, if any.

NOTE FOR CONSULTANTS AND INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTORS:

The Consultant should submit a technical proposal including a detailed elaboration of the methodology, timeline, and list of technical team members.

Please submit a financial offer along with your technical proposal, which contains the following information:

•            Fee for services to be provided – based on the deliverables in the Terms of Reference

•            Wherever possible, indicate the itemized cost of the travel (air tickets etc.)

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… 

The consultant and his/her technical team should possess the following qualifications:

•            PhD’s degree in social work, health policy and management, health economics, or related disciplines,

•            Proven research background and experience in conducting similar evaluation/formative assessment studies,

•            Proven technical knowledge or working experience on prevention of child abuse planning and programming,

•            Previous working experience with UNICEF/UN and MoHME is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check. 

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.