Consultant - Impact Evaluation of Teen Clubs program for Adolescents Living with HIV (ALHIV) in eSwatini (Swaziland)
Mbabane
- Organization: UNICEF - United Nations Children’s Fund
- Location: Mbabane
- Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
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Occupational Groups:
- Youth
- Operations and Administrations
- Development Cooperation and Sustainable Development Goals
- HIV and AIDS
- Monitoring and Evaluation
- Children's rights (health and protection)
- Adolescent Development
- Innovations for Sustainable Development
- Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- Closing Date: Closed
The overall objective is to determine the impact of the mixed sex teen club initiative in addressing needs of adolescents living with HIV.
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As recognized by the 2010 UNAIDS report “Children and AIDS", Teen Clubs have become a global model of excellence for the provision of care and support to HIV-positive adolescents. Per the UNAIDS Report, there is an opportunity to assist HIV-positive adolescents as they approach adulthood and begin to engage in relationships, initiate sexual activity, consider marriage and perhaps start a family. Whether these adolescents are the long-term survivors of mother-to-child transmission, now grown up, or were infected through sex or injecting drug use during adolescence, there is need to identify adolescents living with HIV and provide them with care, treatment and support before they progress to AIDS-associated illnesses. Such support include specific support needs, including psychosocial and community-based support that extends beyond clinical services.
The Teen Clubs are functioning across the 3 Baylor clinics- Centres of Excellence (CoEs), namely Mbabane CoE, Nazarene Raleigh Fitkin Memorial RFM Hospital CoE, and Hlatikhulu CoE and Siphofaneni. Teen Club meetings are generally held once a month (on Saturdays) at each site. To encourage participation, transportation reimbursement and refreshments are provided for the adolescents attending meetings. Approximately 800 teens are enrolled in the programme supported by UNICEF/Baylor and each month hundreds of teens participate in sessions at all four clinic locations.
In addition to the these sites, there are seventy-seven (77) other health facilities currently having teen clubs supported by other partners including the PEPFAR clinical partners in all the four regions. According to the MoH 2017 annual HIV report, 3742 adolescents are enrolled in health facility teen clubs.
The Ministry of Health (MoH) has adopted the teen clubs approach as a promising practice to enhance adherence to ART among adolescents and led the development of teen club guidelines for use by programme implementers. The ministry provides overall policy guidance and quality assurance.
It appears that teen clubs are effective in addressing the needs of adolescents who are on HIV treatment, however the effectiveness of these support groups have not been evaluated hence the decision to conduct an impact evaluation of the Teen Club project to provide benchmark estimates in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability of the project across the three Baylor clinics and Siphofaneni.
The last evaluation of the intervention was undertaken in 2012. This evaluation made recommendations to improve the programme. Over the following years, new approaches to support Adolescent Living with HIV have emerging and these have influenced the way teen clubs are formed and function. Despite increasing interest by both government and non-governmental entities, the impact and the scalability of the whole approach has not been assessed.The findings from the evaluation will provide information for improving programming of the Teen Club initiative; provide guidance for transition of youth living with HIV to adulthood; and inform strategies for scaling up Teen clubs for ALHIV in Swaziland.
The evaluation is in the UNICEF/Government work plan for 2018 and consultancy plan.
Goal and Objective: The overall objective is to determine the impact of the mixed sex teen club initiative in addressing needs of adolescents living with HIV.
a) To provide current status of the functioning of the Teen Clubs, membership (age and sex), type of activities conducted, trained teen leaders (including sex disagregation) at each site, and the management and mentoring aspects.
b) To assess the quality of outputs, outcomes and results of the project related to knowledge, attitude and practices among active and former Teen Club members in the four facilities, on issues related to their health and well-being.
c) To determine the effectiveness of the teen club model in providing support to adolescents in disclosing their status, transitioning between pediatric and adult care and treatment services, acquiring a quality HIV information and education, adhering to treatment and adopting safe sexual behaviors.
d) To identify key and unique needs of adolescent boys and girls, the differentiated needs of rural and urban based adolescents and whether these were met by the programme interventions.
e) To identify key good practices and key lessons learnt, identify gaps, what strategies and interventions to continue and/or discontinue, and to what extent and make recommendations for future improvement based on evaluation findings.
• Undertake a literature review to inform an inception report
• Develop an evaluation protocol (includes sample selection based on the agreed criteria, design and data collection tools) and present for submission to the National Health Research Board
• Develop a data collection plan including a selection of respondents in consultation with Baylor college of Medicine, Swaziland.
• Develop a data quality assurance plan
• Prepare and share a field work plan: The consultant will prepare a detailed plan for field work and share the same in advance with UNICEF and Baylor college of Medicine, Swaziland.
• Undertake data collection as defined in the agreed methodology in the inception report
• Preparation of analysis plan: The consultant will prepare a detailed analysis plan that addressed the objectives of the evaluation. The analysis plan would be shared with the evaluation reference group before finalizing the same.
• Report writing: The consultant will undertake data analysis, prepare the draft report and share with UNICEF, evaluation reference group, and Baylor for comments and suggestions.
• The consultant will present the evaluation report at stakeholder validation meeting, for comments and inputs
• The consultant will incorporate the comments and submit the final report to UNICEF.
Timeline/Deadline: 10 October 2018
The payments will be made upon satisfactory completion of the deliverables mentioned above. The final remuneration will be negotiated by HR.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
b) Relevant work experience:
• At least 10 years combined experience of conducting research in HIV and AIDS or related field (including research on sensitive issues among adolescents and youth).
• Proven experience in design and implementation of quantitative and qualitative evaluation tools and studies; preferably at least 5 years’ experience in leading program evaluations
• Demonstrated experience in ethical research practices.
• Demonstrated expertise in undertaking gender responsive and equity focused evaluations.
• Ability to analyse, synthesize and triangulate data from different sources for precise findings.
• Demonstrated ability to prepare high quality reports in English in a clear, concise manner (a sample of recent analytical report will be requested).
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and ability to meet deadlines.
• Advanced computer and data analysis skills, including proficiency in use of Microsoft Office software and statistical software packages (SPSS, STATA, Epi-Info etc) and relevant qualitative analysis software.
• Knowledge of the country context is an added advantage.
• The consultant should include costs of travel and communication within the consultancy proposal.
• The consultant will provide his/her computer for the assignment.
• The selected candidate will be governed by and subject to UNICEF’s General Terms and Conditions for individual contracts.
Qualified candidates are requested to submit a cover letter, CV, sample of recent similar work deliverable and financial proposal. Please indicate your ability, availability and professional fees rate to undertake the assignment with terms of reference above. Rates must include all expenses related to the assignment (including administration and logistics).
For every Child, you demonstrate…
UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.
The technical competencies required for this post are….
View our competency framework at
http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf
UNICEF 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.
Remarks
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
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