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For every child, protect!

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

Uzbekistan is currently undertaking significant reforms to improve its child protection system, focusing on reducing reliance on institutional care and promoting family-based alternatives for children without parental care, such as foster care. The most recent recommendations from the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) emphasize the importance of accelerating deinstitutionalization efforts and strengthening family- and community-based care to ensure that every child has the opportunity to grow up in a supportive family environment. These recommendations stress the need to move away from institutional care and focus on children’s rights to family life and protection from abuse and neglect.

In response to these recommendations, the National Agency for Social Protection (NASP) under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan has developed a comprehensive set of regulations designed to reform the broader child protection system, with a focus on alternative care. These regulations cover various aspects, including guardianship, sponsorship, adoption, and foster care, ensuring that vulnerable children are placed in family-based environments whenever possible. The regulations include detailed procedures for identifying children in need of care, placing them in alternative forms of family care, and ensuring consistent monitoring of their well-being. They also outline the process for selecting and training foster carers to ensure that they are equipped to meet the emotional, physical, and developmental needs of the children in their care. Special attention is given to supporting children with disabilities or those with complex needs, ensuring they receive the appropriate care and integration into family life.

A consultant is sought to support the operationalization of these regulations, particularly in ensuring that foster care becomes a sustainable and well-supported part of the broader child protection reforms.

Scope of Work:

UNICEF Uzbekistan, in collaboration with the NASP, seeks to undertake a consultancy with the overall objective of operationalizing and strengthening the formal foster care system. The consultancy will focus on developing key components necessary to ensure a well-organized, standardized, and supported foster care system in line with international best practices and the specific cultural context of Uzbekistan.

Detailed tasks include the following:

a) Develop foster care standards and guidelines
The consultant will develop standards and guidelines on the following key areas, informed by focus group discussions and key informant interviews as well as promising international practices:

• Definition of foster care and its role in providing a continuum of care within alternative care settings for children who are not cared for by their birth parents.
• Establishing minimum standards to qualify as a foster carer, ensuring appropriate safeguards and care standards are in place.
• Defining the conditions under which a child qualifies for placement in foster care, with an emphasis on ensuring the child’s best interests.
• Specifying the minimum standards and legal requirements that foster care service providers must meet.
• Outlining the minimum procedures for placing a child in foster care, as well as the recruitment, assessment, approval, training, support, and monitoring processes for foster carers.
• Developing guidelines on the formal support system needed for foster children and their carers, ensuring psychosocial and emotional needs are met.

b) Develop registration guidelines for foster care service providers
The consultant will develop clear registration processes to formalize foster care services, including:

• Creating procedures for the registration and de-registration of foster care service providers.
• Designing and pre-testing tools/forms for registering as a foster care service provider, in consultation with NASP and foster care stakeholders.

c) Develop a recruitment, assessment, and training system for the implementation of foster care guidelines and registration processes
The consultant will develop a comprehensive training manual and tools for the implementation of the foster care guidelines and registration processes. The manual will:

• Equip Child Protection Specialists and relevant civil society partners to train service providers on the recruitment, assessment, and approval of foster carers.
• Provide guidance and exercises on supporting Child Protection Specialists and relevant service providers to offer psychosocial support and counseling to foster carers, ensuring that both the carers and children in their care receive the necessary support.

d) Provide recommendations to NASP in designing an electronic registration system for foster care candidates, ensuring it aligns with the training and decision-making process

The consultant will support the following:

• Review the draft algorithm on NASP’s electronic platform and provide recommendations based on established standards for recruitment, assessment, and training of foster carers. (This task requires subject matter expertise related to foster care, not IT expertise.)

e) Support the roll-out of the training system including the Training of Trainers and one training

The consultant will support the following trainings:

• Train an approximate 20 trainers in the 5-day training of trainers.
• Provide coaching and mentoring to selected trainers in the first round of training to an approximate 20 Child Protection Specialists and relevant civil society partners on the recruitment, assessment, and approval of foster carers.

UNICEF will assist with scheduling FGDs and KIIs, providing an interpreter, and translating documents from English to Russian and Uzbek.

Work Assignments Overview – Deliverables/Outputs – Timeline

1. Desk review and planning of KIs and FGDs
– Review necessary documents, reports and regulations on foster care
– Conduct a desk study of relevant international models of standards and guidelines which could be drawn on as options for Uzbekistan
– Develop FGD guides and incorporate feedback from NASP and UNICEF
– Develop list of questions for KIIs with social workers, staff of residential care facilities for children, representatives of NGOs working with children and incorporate feedback from NASP and UNICEF

FGD guides and KIIs questionnaires – 6 days (home-based)

2. Conduct KIIs and FGDs
– Conduct 1 FGD with 6-10 foster carers and 8 KIs with relevant stakeholders (Child Protection Specialists from Inson Centres, staff of residential care facilities for children, NGOs) each in two regions

KIIs and FGDs successfully completed – 6 days (in-country)

3. Develop standards and guidelines
– Conceptualize the findings of the desk review and FGDs and KIIs into draft standards and guidelines
– Present draft standards and guidelines to NASP and UNICEF for discussion
– Test draft standards and guidelines with Child Protection Specialists and other key stakeholders (online)
– Incorporate necessary changes into final standards and guidelines

Finalised standards (10-15 pages, English) that outline the core principles, requirements and benchmarks for foster care and key indicators to measure success

Finalised guidelines (20-25 pages, English) that provide practical steps and procedures to implement the standards – 15 days (home-based)

4. Develop Registration Guidelines and a Training Manual
– Develop the registration guidelines in line with developed standards and guidelines, as well as a training manual for implementation of the foster care guidelines
– Present the registration guidelines and training manual with NASP and UNICEF for discussion
– Pre-test the training manual with Child Protection Specialists and other key stakeholders and incorporate changes into the manual
– Finalize manual for approval by NASP

Registration guidelines (15-25 pages, English) and a practical hands-on training manual with modules, exercises, and resources (40-50 pages, English) – 25 days (home-based)

5. Provide recommendations to NASP in designing an electronic registration system for foster care candidates, ensuring it aligns with the training and decision-making process
– Review the draft algorithm on NASP’s electronic platform
– Provide recommendations based on established standards for recruitment, assessment, and training of foster carers.

Set of recommendations for the electronic registration platform, aligned with training and decision-making process – 4 days (2 home-based and 2 in-country)

6. Conduct the Training of Trainers
– Train an approx. 20 trainers

5-day training of trainers conducted; Pre- and post-test – 7 days (2 home-based and 5 in-country)

7. Support the trainers in conducting the first training
– Provide coaching and mentoring to two trainers

Coaching and mentoring provided to 2 trainers for a 4-day training of an approx. 20 trainees – 6 days (in-country)

International travel: 

Total in-country days: 19

Please submit a professional fee (in USD) based on 69 working days to undertake this assignment, without travel fees as this will be reimbursed as and when they take place.

How can you make a difference?

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Social Sciences, Social Work, or related field.
• At least 8 years of practical international experience in the field of alternative care, including with a focus on children with disabilities.
• Knowledge of international standards concerning the alternative care of children.
• Proven experience in supporting governments in designing/strengthening their foster care systems, with a focus on the areas highlighted in the ToR.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Previous work experience in Uzbekistan or Central Asia to be considered 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.