Child Protection National Consultant: VAC (Violence Against Children), UNICEF Refugee Response Office, Poland, Warsaw

Consultant Programme & Policy

Contract

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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

Established shortly after the war in Ukraine escalated in February 2022, the UNICEF Refugee Response Office (RRO) in Poland has been working together with civil society and government partners at the local and central levels to strengthen systems, expand and adapt existing services, support policy development, provide technical expertise and capacity building. Two years on, we continue to work together to ensure refugee children and adolescents in Poland continue learning, families stay healthy and safe, and that best interests of all children, including the most vulnerable, are always prioritized in decision-making.

As the office exits from humanitarian action/response, the recovery/resilience/development programmes remains in the country and continue to support the Poland Government on specific thematic areas.

How can you make a difference?

In accordance with the core commitments for children, strengthening child protection systems has been an important part of UNICEFs response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis. Working in close collaboration with the Government, Municipalities and CSOs, UNICEF RRO in Poland has taken measures to address gaps and strengthen the capacity of the national child protection system to respond to the needs of refugee and host community children and to protect them from violence, exploitation, and abuse.

Poland has recently made significant steps to improve the safety and wellbeing of all its children. The new child protection laws (Act of 28 July 2023 amending the Family and Guardianship Code and several other acts) introduced special measures to safeguard and protect children, including the commitment to adopt the National Action Plans for preventing and combating violence against children and for counteracting sexual abuse of children. The latter indicates, among others, the need to strengthen cooperation between agencies working at the local level to ensure the coordination and coherence of their activities to provide effective assistance to children and their families. UNICEF has been working in partnership with the Government to support these national efforts.

As part of the UNICEF RRO programme on child protection, this consultancy assignment will provide support to the Child Protection Section with drafting, in close cooperation with UNICEF RRO and the inter-agency expert group, guidelines for multi-agency cooperation at the local level prevent and respond to violence against children, including refugee children.

SCOPE OF WORK:

• Analyze the capacity and existing gaps in the Polish child protection system, especially related to the multi-agency cooperation at the local level.
• Review the existing best practices examples: European multi-agency cooperation model/s to protect children, including an analysis of what solutions could be adjusted and applied in the Polish context; Review of the selected interventions implemented in Poland that have worked and could be potentially scaled up.
• Developing guidelines providing a model approach and a set of recommendations to support the strengthening of multi-agency cooperation at the local level to address violence against children, including refugee children.

TASKS/MILESTONES:

• Developing a workplan in collaboration with UNICEF RRO in Poland, including detailed timetable of work. The workplan shall include an analytical framework, outlining key documents and resources, including legal framework, to be included in the analysis, sample of key informants to interview, as well as methodological considerations that have been made.
• Conducting desk research with the aim to 1) outline the key principles and features of selected European child protection model/s that are important to consider when identifying and addressing the gaps in the Polish child protection system and analysing what solutions could be adjusted and applied in the Polish context; 2) analysing the capacity of the Polish child protection system with the focus on multi-agency cooperation at the local level, identifying opportunities, gaps and challenges to effective cooperation; 3) review of interventions that could be identified as best practice examples and potentially scaled up.
• Participation in inter-agency expert group meetings, conducting key informant interviews/focus group discussions to complement existing documents.
• Developing the guidelines providing a model approach and a set of recommendations to support the strengthening of multi-agency cooperation to address violence against children, including refugee children. The model should include a toolkit that could be implemented by agencies working at the local level. The guidelines should also include recommendations for amendments of the legal and institutional framework in Poland to strengthen the child protection system and making it more responsive to the needs of refugee and migrant children.
• Developing draft report and PPT presentation and presenting to the UNICEF RRO and interagency expert group to discuss and validate the final guidelines and recommendations.
• Drafting final report and PPT presentation including comments and inputs provided during consultations.

The guidelines will be based on a child-centered approach and should specifically focus on:

• Coordination mechanism of the multi-agency cooperation at the local level, including designation of a coordinating agency and relevant roles within participating agencies.
• Analyzing roles and responsibilities of each agency involved.
• Procedures for multi-agency cooperation, that will ensure effective communication and information sharing between the agencies to facilitate decision-making in child protection cases, having regard to the competences and responsibilities of different stakeholders and in line with regulations on personal data protection.
• Tool(s) for needs assessment and risk assessment that could be jointly applied by relevant agencies.
• Assessment of needs of relevant agencies and developing recommendations for capacity strengthening.

Methodology and Approach

The assignment will involve a desk review of existing documents, including legal and policy frameworks, reports, documentation of good practices, and interviews/focus group discussions with key informants. The consultant will closely cooperate with UNICEF RRO and participate in the meetings of the inter-agency working group of experts (meetings are planned once a month for about 2 hours, online participation is possible). The consultant will have access to the materials documenting good practices shared by the group members. The findings of the desk research and interviews/focus group discussions, including guidelines with recommendations, will be validated through consultation with the UNICEF RRO and the inter-agency working group of experts and presented in a written report and a PPT presentation. Throughout the contract duration, the consultant will closely collaborate with child protection staff of UNICEF RRO, inter-agency group of experts and other specialists, as deemed necessary. The consultant will have regular contact with UNICEF RRO to review progress, challenges and next steps. All reports to be submitted in electronic format by email to UNICEF RRO in Polish and, where possible, provide translation of the final report in English.

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

• A relevant Master’s degree (in one of the following fields is required: social work, law, sociology, pedagogy, psychology or other

  relevant social science field)

• Proven experience and knowledge related to the areas indicated in the Terms of Reference (ToR).
• Demonstrated experience of working on safeguarding/child protection and in-depth knowledge of European child protection system/s (from at least one country with established functional multi-agency cooperation).
• Understanding of the specific vulnerabilities of refugee children and their barriers to seek help in situations of violence and abuse
• Demonstrated experience of working with a range of stakeholders including public agencies and nongovernmental organisations working in the field of child protection.
• Demonstrated experience of producing high-quality reports and/or other publications on child protection.
• Knowledge of the Polish child protection system, including the roles, responsibilities and capacities of relevant agencies.
• Experience in system strengthening work is highly desirable.
• Fluency in Polish and English (oral and written).

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors 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.

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:

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.

This position is a short-term assignment and doesn’t give rise to a long-term permanent post with the organization.

Applicants are required to include in their applications a financial proposal which includes, whenever possible, a lumpsum amount for consultancy fees, local transportation and other miscellaneous costs. Breakdown or details of the fee will be much appreciated.

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Added 1 day ago - Updated 8 hours ago - Source: unicef.org