Home-based: Child Protection Consultant (36 working days between Feb 2024 and Mar 2025) – Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECARO)

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, protection.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment

To develop a white paper on statutory family support services as part of an effective gate-keeping system in Europe and Central Asia Region.

Background

The Convention of the Rights of the Child, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children all recognise that the ideal setting for a child to grow up is within a family environment that provides a nurturing and loving atmosphere. After decades of evidence-based advocacy and policy dialogue, many governments in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Region have led significant reforms to close or transform large-scale institutions and replace them with community- and family-based care services and put in place family support services and gate-keeping mechanisms to prevent children from being unnecessarily separated from their families and placed in care. Continued investment and momentum is required to ensure that no child is left behind in institutional care that these reforms are completed and are irreversible.

After over 20 years of efforts to transition child care systems from institutional to family and community-based care for children, countries are still struggling to put in place a comprehensive child care system, aiming to provide family care for ALL children and ensure that all services developed as part of such a system aim to strengthen families to care for their children, prevent unnecessary child-family separations, provide family-based care to children who are separated from their families and prioritize child reintegration and family reunification at any stage of a child’s journey in the care system. An over-reliance on residential care is often associated with poor universal services and a lack of family support services and other family-based alternatives, such as kinship care or foster care.

ECA region is steadily moving towards full transition of the childcare system towards family and community-based services. But for this full transition to happen few things should be prioritized by governments:

• putting in place a solid gatekeeping and family support system with a focus on prevention of unnecessary child-family separation and
• developing a strong and diversified foster care system.

The lack of these two systems perpetuates the situation for children who are left behind in institutional care or children who are at risk of being placed in care.

In 2023, UNICEF ECARO have developed a white paper on the development of foster care in ECA Region, providing advice to governments and other stakeholders on issues related to foster care development as part of the child care continuum. In 2024, UNICEF ECARO is hiring a consultant to develop a white paper on the development of statutory family support services as part of an effective gate-keeping system, recognizing that this is a common challenge across many countries in ECA region.

Scope of Work

Under the supervision of the Child Protection Specialist the consultant will provide technical support to UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office in developing a working paper on what constitutes a good statutory family support service established as part of an effective gatekeeping system and continuum of child care services.

Under this background the paper aims to:

1. examine the role of the statutory family support services in the continuum of child protection and alternative care for children services in societies where they are well-established and in the societies undertaking transition from reliance on institutional care to family and community-based care;
2. examine the links with (non-statutory) family strengthening services and programmes, including parenting programmes, delivered to families with children in need of additional support;
3. provide normative guidance on what constitutes a good quality statutory family support service and the key methodological, organizational, and financial elements for an effective provision of family support services;
4. identify strategies to boost the development of statutory family support services as part of the child protection and gatekeeping system and continuum of child care services.

The paper should provide answers to questions frequently asked by policy makers and practitioners:

1. What is a statutory family support service? What are the common elements of a statutory family support service across countries with developed child protection systems (i.e. case management protocols, links to a formal gate-keeping mechanism, level of qualification and training requirements for the family support social workers, links to any judicial mechanisms, etc.).
2. What is the difference between a statutory family support service and other family strengthening services and programmes, including parenting programmes? How is family support for prevention of family separation is different from family support for child reintegration and family reunification?
3. What are the things to consider by the authorities while designing the legal and normative framework for a statutory family support service (legislation, standards, social work qualification requirements, pre-service and in-service training and professional supervision, necessary case management procedures/protocol, referral pathways, interagency and interdisciplinary collaboration etc.).
4. How to ensure financial resources are allocated for the development and delivery of statutory family support services? Where should these funds come from? How to ensure reallocation of funds from closing down institutions to the family support and other prevention services?
5. What are promising practises in the system for professional supervision and performance management of family support social workers?
6. What elements of the statutory family support services could be commissioned to NGO and other private providers? What licensing and inspection frameworks should be developed to ensure quality of statutory family support services?

Methodology

To increase our understanding of the role of statutory family support services in modern child protection systems and to further inform the UNICEF work with governments in the ECA region in child protection system strengthening, UNICEF will support a review of the development and use of the statutory family support services in ECA region, including EU and other parts of the world, where statutory family support services are provided to families with children where there is a risk for the child to be separated from the birth family temporarily or permanently and placed in out-of-home care.

The review will consist of a desk review, key informant interviews, in-depth interviews in a group of selected countries where statutory family support services exist and are effective in gate-keeping children outside of care system. The review will also include inputs from an External Reference Group of experts (ERG).

The review will be designed with the participation of key governments across the ECA region who express the willingness to learn and implement real changes in their child care systems. These governments will be invited to join active review and reflection groups, where the concepts can be translated into their national contexts.

A desk review will compile existing secondary data on the use of statutory family support services and family strengthening services, exploring the links and differences between these two, looking specifically at their role in the gatekeeping system and as part of the continuum of child care services. Secondary sources of relevant data will include data collected by governments, as well as by major NGOs and private bodies supporting the development of family support and family strengthening services and programmes. The desk review will also scan existing literature and documents for evidence of government plans that aimed to develop family support services as part of Deinstitutionalization and childcare reforms.

Key informant interviews will inform the data collection process and will be carried out with identified experts, including members of the External Reference Group. In-depth interviews will be held with a number of stakeholders and with representatives of UNICEF country offices in the countries where the development of statutory family support services is taking off successfully.

Work Assignment Overview

Estimated Duration of the Contract

36 working days between February 2024 and March 2025.

Consultant’s Work Place and Official Travel

The Consultant will be remote/home-based with no travel foreseen.

Estimated Cost of the Consultancy & Payment Schedule

Payment will be made on submission of an invoice and satisfactory completion of the above-mentioned deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if work/outputs are incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines. All materials developed will remain the copyright of UNICEF and UNICEF will be free to adapt and modify them in the future.

Please submit a professional fee (in USD) based on 36 working days to undertake this assignment.

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

• Master’s degree in education, sociology, social work, or another relevant field
• Minimum eight (8) years of progressively responsible professional work experience in child protection, child protection system strengthening and childcare reform, inclusive education at the national or international levels.
• Knowledge of childcare and child protection reforms processes is desirable.
• Knowledge of the ECA region is an advantage.
• Excellent analytical and written skills.
• Experience in conducting research.
• Fluency in English (oral and written).

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS), and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most marginalized children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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:

Please include a full CV and Cover Letter in your application. Additionally, indicate your availability and professional fee (in USD) to undertake the terms of reference above. Applications submitted without a professional fee will not be considered. 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.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants 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.