Assessment of the young child Home Visiting (HV) service provided by the primary health care providers pilot model and development of Policy and Action Plan for possible scale up, UNICEF Kyr

Contract

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Background

In 2012, a regional consensus-building conference in Ankara, Turkey,[1] recommended developing and introducing a mixed model of home visiting based on research on the social determinants of health. The model consists of a well-defined package of universal services for all families and enhanced support for families with identified needs. The universal progressive system should involve updated content and purpose of the young child home visiting service provided by the primary health care providers.

UNICEF’s strategy capitalised on early contacts with families, using patronage/home visiting (HV) services as a means to help reach marginalised families. However, traditional approaches to HV offered a limited range of services and focused primarily on promoting child (physical) health. UNICEF saw an opportunity for HV to identify and address developmental issues more broadly, offer referral to families to specialised support services, and enhance families’ capacity to care for their young children. This upgraded package of HV services has been modelled in Kyrgyzstan in the Suzak and Nookat family medicine centres. In “Universal Progressive Home-Visiting” (UPHV) – the term “progressive” refers both to the greater range of services provided and specific targeting of the most vulnerable children and households who, once identified, receive more support visits. The UPHV model seeks to address several critical health system bottlenecks (related to the enabling environment, supply and quality of services and demand-side factors) that prevent young children from developing to their full potential.

In 2018 UNICEF ECARO commissioned an independent Multi-Country Evaluation (MCE) of UPHV, which did not fully cover the work on strengthening home visiting in Kyrgyzstan because of its very initial stage of development. The country had at the time just started the preparation for the piloting of this service.

UNICEF Kyrgyzstan has supported the Ministry of Health and Social Development to develop normative documents, clinical standards and training modules to pilot this type of service on a level of few family medicine services since 2018. National experts facilitated several training, supervision, and mentoring sessions to ensure local primary health care providers are equipped with the needed knowledge and skills to provide quality home visiting service to young children assigned to their medical facilities. Village health committee members are also capacitated to share the knowledge with parents on appropriate child care practices. Due to COVID-19, the service provision approaches required adjustment to ensure continuity of the service at a community level.

[1] UNICEF Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia and Ministry of Health, Government of Turkey (2013). Partnering for Parenting. Regional Conference Supporting Families for Young Child Wellbeing: The Role of Community Nursing, Home Visiting and Outreach Services.

How can you make a difference?

The assignment aims to develop Policy and an Action Plan for the scaling up of the young child home visiting service provided by the primary health care providers based on the recommendations from the assessment of the results of the introduction of the HV in the pilot areas.

Scope of Work:

1. Assess the implementation of the UPHV model in the targeted areas, and the impact on children and families access to quality health services. To understand the success factors and constraints to implementation of UPHV, bottlenecks or enabling factors in the context of the country and pilot rayons;
2. Assess how the introduction of the young child home visiting service contributed to the expansion of the universal health coverage, removing system-level bottlenecks and improving effective coverage of evidence-based interventions in the pilot rayons;
3. Assess the extent to which the results achieved to date have/can support and inform the design of the “Young child home visiting program” modelled in pilot areas – and suggest recommendations for any necessary adjustments and effective scale up, including recommendations to other sectors to contribute to the improvement of cross-sectoral coordination on a national and community level for child wellbeing;
4. Prepare the 1) Final assessment report and 2) Policy with the Action Plan on scaling up the “Young child Home Visiting programme “ for Kyrgyzstan.

The final assessment report and the Action Plan for scaling up the young child home visiting service by the primary health care providers should apply equity and gender based analysis, considering the potential influence of external factors and social determinants of health. Specific attention should be paid to understanding the extent to which UPHV extends the reach of Government social services to be inclusive of households and children typically left behind.

The Methodology:

1. Extensive desk review of existing documentation, all relevant regional office policies and guidelines on home visiting, UNICEF Kyrgyzstan project and programme documents, clinical standards and training materials, primary and secondary data reports (training, supervision, mentoring reports);
2. Based on the desk review, the consultant will develop an Inception Report that includes:

• A summary of initial findings against the assessment questions derived from the desk review;
• recommended methodological approach to this assignment,
• draft data collection instruments.

3. Conduct interviews with key experts, service providers, beneficiaries
4. Validate data through consultation with expert’s group consisted of the national and local level health experts in the home visiting service
5. Prepare final assessment report and Policy with the Action Plan for scaling of the service and present it to the partners. To facilitate the assessment process, UNICEF will assist with organizing interviews, missions, organization of meetings.

Supervisor:

Programme Specialist Cholpon Imanalieva

Start Date:

October 25, 2021

End Date:

February 8, 2022

Number of Days (working):

35

payment

Work Assignment Overview

Tasks/Milestone:

Deliverables/Outputs:

Timeline

1. Inception Report (30-40 pages), including the Desk Review

October 25, 2021

November 5, 2021

5

20%

2. Collection of the data and preparation of the Draft Assessment Report (including an Executive Summary and Annexes): The report will be shared and discussed with MOHSD experts for validation

By December 10, 2021

15

40%

3. Final assessment report (30-40 pages excluding the Executive Summary and Annexes)) including Executive Summary (no more than three pages) and recommendations.
4. The first draft of the Policy with the Action Plan to scale up the UPHV to present and discuss with MOHSD experts

By January 21, 2022

10

20%

5. Policy with the Action Plan is finalised addressing the comments and recommendations from national experts and UNICEF
6. PPTs prepared for the joint review of the materials with partners on results of the assessment, Policy and action plan are submitted

By February 8, 2022

5

20%

Report writing, terminology, publication and citation guidelines of UNICEF should be followed. UNICEF will provide the necessary guidelines. All documents produced should be child-sensitive and in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other legal documents on human rights. All deliverables will be submitted in English, the content of which should be well structured, coherent and evidence-based.

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

• High education and Masters in medicine and/or public health and/health economics/or/social policy
• Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:
• • Substantive experience leading or managing evaluations of HV programme. Experience of assessment of HV in ECAR would be considered as an advantage
  • Expertise and experience in the provision of the recommendations to advance health system strengthening reforms in ECARO countries;
  • Experience in analysing and providing policy recommendations to integrate activities of the different sectors on a community level is an asset;
  • Knowledge of the English and Russian languages is mandatory

For every Child, you demonstrate…

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

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are...

Builds and maintain the partnership, Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness, Drive to achieve results for impact, Innovates and embraces change, Manages ambiguity and complexity, Thinks and acts strategically, Works collaboratively with others, Nurtures, leads and manages people.

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s values and competencies.

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.

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 attach your financial offer.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.