Consultant for documenting promising practices in Serbia

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

UNICEF has been supporting the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs and the Ministry of Justice to advance the protection of children with the financial support of the European Union through the implementation of the project entitled: “Advancing child protection through strengthening the justice and social welfare systems”.  The project included two distinct pillars.  The first focused on advancing preventative social work, developing services to strengthen vulnerable families living in multiple deprivation and transforming children’s homes into family support centres.  The second pillar was focused on advancing the justice system so as to adequately protect children as offenders, victims/witnesses or interested parties in civil proceedings.   Both of the above initiatives included piloting of innovative specialized services for children, adapting procedures/practices in the area of social work and guardianship authority as well as the work of the prosecution and judiciary.  A number of promising practises have arisen from this collaboration.  These have been evaluated in collaboration with key national actors such as the Belgrade University and the Republic Institute for Social Protection.  In addition to evaluating the impact of new services, the project has involved producing illustrative examples so as to demonstrate the benefit from the perspective of an individual case.  The work has also involved developing a range of guidelines, instructions and handbooks.  Most of the outputs have been translated into English for reporting purposes.  

UNICEF wishes to document the good practices and promising experiences through developing two publications so as to: a) Support Serbia in experience exchange with other countries who are struggling with the same challenges, within and beyond the EU; b) Attract interest from development partners to actively engage in the reform areas of justice for children and social welfare; c) Exchange experiences with other UNICEF offices.  

The consultant may apply to complete both or just of the defined deliverables.   

Start Date:

1 July 2017

End Date:

Number of working days/months

15 September 2017

40 working days (20 for each deliverable)

Work Assignment Overview

Methodology and steps

The methodology and steps for developing the publications are the same for both deliverables.

Methodology:  This includes reviews of a range of documents in English, interviews with key stakeholders and regular meetings with UNICEF staff throughout the process.  All meetings can be organized through skype. 

The steps are the following:   

1) Review of relevant literature including all donor reports, guidelines, instructions and handbooks that were developed during the initiative, evaluations on the impact of children in the initiatives that were piloted, reports of administrative data, situations analyses etc. 

2) Meetings with child protection offices and other key UNICEF colleagues on the structure of the publication and how to report on each of the promising practices.

3) Development of a detailed structure of the publication.

4) Sharing segments of draft publication with UNICEF for review.

5) Meetings with key stakeholders including additional meetings with UNICEF staff. These meetings can be organized via skype and will be in English.  UNICEF will secure translation if necessary.  The estimated number of meetings is 5 per deliverable. 

6) Finalization of draft publication to be submitted to UNICEF for comments.

7) Publication finalized without iconography following incorporation of comments/suggestions from UNICEF; this version of the publication is expected to be fully designed and ready for electronic sharing. 

Tasks and deliverables

Task 1: To write and finalize the layout for a publication on promising practices for strengthening vulnerable families in Serbia. 

The publication would be based on existing programme outputs (standards, programmes, donor reports, guidelines, analytical reports) and interviews with key stakeholders.  The publication would include the   following:  documentation of five promising practices through reflection on a) relevant administrative data; b) description of innovative approaches; c) illustrative examples from a beneficiary and practitioner perspective; d) reflections on the outcomes documented through independent service evaluations. The publication should include photographs (to be obtained from UNICEF), graphs and tables as well as illustrative examples and other approaches that help demonstrate the importance of the initiatives in an interesting manner.  The five promising practices communicated in the publication would include:  the family outreach services, introducing shared parenting for families living in multiple deprivation with children with disability, the role of social work in prioritizing family support and prevention of placement of children in care, advancing financial transfers for families with children with disability and transformation of children’s homes into family support centres. 

Deliverable 1: Publication on promising family strengthening practices from Serbia; Publication is to be in English and be maximum 30 pages in length of text (A4, 10 fonts, Times New Roman).  This includes graphs, tables, photographs and other iconography. 

Timeframe 1: Draft with description of iconography to be submitted by: 30th August 2017; Final draft with finalized full design (iconography and photographs) to be submitted by: 10th September 2017.

Task 2:  To write and finalize the layout for a publication on promising practices for advancing access to justice for children. 

The publication would be based on existing programme outputs (standards, programmes, donor reports, guidelines, analytical reports) and interviews with key stakeholders.  The publication would include the   following:  documentation of four promising practices through reflection on a) relevant administrative data; b) description of innovative approaches; c) illustrative examples from a beneficiary and practitioner perspective; d) reflections on the outcomes documented through independent service evaluations.  The publication should include photographs (to be obtained from UNICEF), graphs and tables as well as other iconographic that help illustrate the importance of the initiatives.  The publication also needs to include illustrative examples from a beneficiary and practitioner perspective.  The four promising practices communicated in the publication would include:  piloting diversionary schemes and alternative sanctions, advancing the protection of child victims/witnesses in justice proceedings, enabling child participation in civil proceedings and advancing access   to quality free legal aid concerning child rights violations. 

Deliverable 2:  Publication on promising practices in the area of access to justice from Serbia; Publication is to be in English and be maximum 30 pages in length of text (A4, 10 fonts, Times New Roman) and to include graphs, tables, photographs and other iconography as well as illustrative examples. 

Timeframe 2:  Draft with description of iconography to be submitted by: 30th August 2017; Final draft with finalized full design (iconography and photographs) to be submitted by: 10th September 2017.

Minimum Qualifications required:

Masters in Social sciences or related field

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

·        An advanced degree in social sciences; 

·        Documented experience in completing published written documents in English in the following areas: child rights, child protection, justice for children, social inclusion and community development;

·        Excellent written and spoken English;

·        Knowledge of Serbian is an asset;

·        Experience in for the UN is an asset;  Excellent writing skills

The application must include the following:

1. Daily rate in RSD (all travel related costs: transport, accommodation, DSA etc. to be included in the daily rate, if applicable)
2. CV 

   Important note: Incomplete applications will not be taken into consideration.

    

   Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities to apply.