Early Childhood Development Awareness Campaign Coordinator

Children and their families living in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria have been exposed to levels of adversity that threaten their development and jeopardize the future prosperity and stability of the societies in which they live. Research shows that the development of basic skills can help promote resiliency and, for the most vulnerable children, help mitigate the negative effects of conflict and crisis. But such care and education are unavailable to many children. Ahlan Simsim’s theory of change is based on the idea that Sesame Workshop’s signature culturally relevant, localized production approach, with its engaging Muppets and other elements, coupled with the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC’s) expertise in delivering services to people affected by conflict and crisis, will enable the creation of a scalable, replicable intervention for early childhood programming to help a generation of conflict-affected children achieve their developmental potential.

According to the National Strategy and Action Plan for TOBACCO CONTROL 2022-2026, the goal of this action plan is to markedly reduce the health and socioeconomic burden from preventable tobacco-related deaths and diseases by reducing tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke through:

·strengthening political will and good governance to fully implement the WHO FCTC, and               to protect tobacco control from tobacco industry interference;

·expanding the implementation of evidence-based strategies to reduce and eventually                    prevent the demand for tobacco;

·accelerating the implementation of evidence-based strategies to restrict and control the                supply of tobacco and tobacco products;

·ensuring that surveillance and monitoring generate quality data to guide tobacco control                actions, while keeping track of legislation enforcement to promote compliance with                        established tobacco control policies.

Consultancy Purpose

The purpose for this consultancy is to co-develop with Ministry of Health an awareness campaign to spread the messages of tobacco control among the families in general and families where mothers within the reproductive age group, and families who have children at early age (passive smokers), aiming to increase the demand on the public services managed by the Ministry of Health on smoking cessation, as well as increase the caregivers awareness about the impact of tobacco on fetuses’ and children’s health on the longer term. The consultant shall achieve the following overall tasks:

-  Mapping existing advocacy and campaigning efforts that the Health Awareness and            Campaigning Directorate (HCAD) would integrate the tailored ECD-Cessation messaging.

- Develop tailored smoking cessation messages for the target population (caregivers), that are based on evidence on the impact and prevalence of exposure to smoking on children’s development and mothers’ health.

-  Co-develop the campaign design approach package with HCAD’s technical team/FP.

-  Integrate cessation messaging in existing advocacy efforts that reach out to the targeted population (caregivers of children ages 0-8).

- Develop tools to monitor the results of the campaign.

- Develop a report that outlines the main findings, learnings and recommendations for HCAD from the campaign implementation.

- Based on the report developed, provide the ministry with a campaign approach that the ministry could adopt.

- Building the capacities of healthcare professionals in primary healthcare centers in delivering tailored smoking cessation messages to caregivers (capacity sharing: mentoring and coaching)

The consultant shall achieve the following tasks:

Phase 1: research phase

1. Review the latest literate and studies that describe the size of the problem, causes, patterns that adults and children in smoking.
2. Review the latest evidence on the impact of smoking and exposure to smoking on child development and mother health.
3. Conduct FGDs with adults and youth to learn more about the attitudes and perceptions concerning tobacco consumption, habits and family smoking patterns and prototype with them some ideas of the key messages that can used at later stage. The FGDs will also include learning from the adults and youth about the most impactful media tools from their perspective.
4. Conduct meetings with the Health Campaigning and Awareness department to learn about the free access to national and local TV and Radio channels, as well as local magazines and newspaper, the reach of MoH face book and other social media platforms. The consultant will also ask during the meeting about the current MoH partnerships with CBOs and INGOs concerning tobacco control and similar interventions and existing or planned advocacy and campaigning initiatives.

Phase 2: campaign design

1. Prepare the agenda for the workshop design, by summarizing first all the findings of phase one and share them with attendees. Involve all MoH related partners in the design workshop by consulting the learning and scaling manager and MoH lead.
2. Facilitate the workshop aiming to come up with main target audience, key media messages and tools, the partners main interventions.
3. Compile the results of the workshop in a report and share it with the Scaling and Learning Manager.
4. Develop tailored smoking cessation messages for the target population (caregivers), that are based on evidence on the impact and prevalence of exposure to smoking on children’s development and mothers’ health.
5. Co-develop the campaign design with HCAD’s technical team/FP

a.integrate cessation messaging in existing advocacy efforts that reach out to the targeted population (caregivers of children ages 0-8)

b.develop tools to monitor the results of the campaign

6. Design a plan of action that describes the main implementation steps and activities,

Phase 3: the implementation

1. Monitor the direct implementation tasks that will be handled by MoH team assigned by the MHAD including communicating the messages through social media, TV local and national channels, and radio stations.
2. Pilot some of the messages via each media method and collect the feedback and reflections in order to modify the messages after one month of the broadcasting.
3. Develop a report that outlines the main findings, learnings and recommendations for HCAD from the campaign implementation

4. Document all the feedback and modifications in a report and share it with LSM.