Consultancy: Child Protection Data Categorization Consultancy - Child Protection Section, PG, NYHQ/Remote - Req

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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, hope.

Consultancy Title: Child Protection Data Categorization Consultancy

Section/Division/Duty Station: Child Protection, Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, HQ New York (home-based, remote position)

Duration: 60 days between February 1, 2022 to October 15, 2022

About UNICEF

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

The UNICEF Child Protection Strategy 2021-2030 envisions a world where all children are free from violence, exploitation, abuse, neglect and harmful practices. The primary focus of this Strategy is prevention. Our ambition is to scale up evidence-based prevention approaches to the population level – not only in the core Child Protection sectors of Social Welfare and Justice, but also in Education, Health, Social Protection and other sectors with strong and clear accountabilities to deliver child protection outcomes. In addition to our core focus on universal prevention, UNICEF will ensure that no child is left behind: we will work with partners to target interventions on children at greatest risk of child protection violations. These include children in humanitarian/crisis settings, children with disabilities, children deprived of parental care, and children experiencing other forms of discrimination and exclusion. Where children are experiencing violations, UNICEF will work with partners to strengthen access to response services to prevent recurrence and provide care, support and justice. To deliver these Objectives, the Strategy adopts three core interlinking programming strategies: 1) To effectively address the behavioral, social, cultural and economic determinants of child protection violations at scale 2) To support inclusive and effective child protection systems in preventing and responding to child protection violations, and 3) To effectively prevent and respond to child protection violations in humanitarian situations.

UNICEF co-leads The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (the Alliance), a global network of operational agencies, academic institutions, policymakers, donors and practitioners that facilitates inter-agency technical collaboration on child protection in all humanitarian contexts. The Alliance sets standards and produces technical guidance for use by the various stakeholders, particularly field practitioners, in alignment with UNICEF’s Child Protection Strategy 2021-2030 and UNICEF Strategic Plan 2022-2025.

The classification and categorization of child protection risks in terms of violations/harm, risk factors/vulnerabilities and protective factors/assets, and interventions to prevent and respond to them varies greatly from organization to organization and across humanitarian settings. To date the humanitarian community has not been able to collect, classify and analyze child protection related information in a harmonized way to contribute to standardized data collection and analysis on child protection risks, and interventions. This limits the utility of data collected and, therefore, its capacity to inform learning, planning, advocacy, targeting and resource mobilization.

The categorization and analysis of child protection risks and interventions are relevant to a number of aspects of child protection in humanitarian action, including but not limited to:

• Needs analyses
• Categorization of child protection violations/harms, vulnerabilities, and assets within broader protection monitoring
• Planning of child protection prevention and response interventions, including by allowing estimates of children experiencing different types of child protection violations/ harm, risks, vulnerabilities, and assets in order to plan and monitor different types of child protection interventions
• Reporting on child protection violations/harm and risks experienced by children benefiting from specific types of child protection interventions, such as case management

The child protection sector has undertaken important work over the last 10 years that can inform the development of a standard data categorization framework for child protection risks and interventions in humanitarian action. Further, work similar to data categorization and standardization for Child Protection activities has been undertaken in some countries and specific settings (e.g., Jordan and Lebanon) which can be referenced and built upon.

Purpose

In December 2019, UNHCR hosted an initial consultation on structuring and categorizing child protection data. Members of the Case Management Task Force, CPIMS+ Steering Committee and the Alliance convened in Copenhagen and agreed to support a common approach to child protection data categorization. During this meeting it was agreed that looking at the categorization of child protection risks and interventions would benefit overall child protection programming. It was also agreed that the initial focus of this work would be on case management data, meaning data gathered on the risks children face and thereafter work can commence on categorizing interventions provided to them as part of the case management services and too more broadly child protection and related services.

This ToR concerns the first phase of the project. The case management data categorization process will be Phase I of a large data categorization project and would include child protection risks (in terms of violations/harm or risk of harm), risk factors/vulnerabilities and protective factors/assets. The development and testing for child protection data categorization for the purposes of case management would inform Phase II of the data categorization process for interventions to prevent and respond to child protection risks, taking into account vulnerabilities and assets/protective factors. In Phase II it is anticipated that distinction between child protection case management interventions and other CP actions will be therein defined.

Terms of Reference / Deliverables

Scope of Work

The Alliance is looking for an experienced consultant in child protection case management, MEAL or information management to support the development of the inter-agency child protection data categorization for case management work. Working under the management of the Alliance and the Child Protection Data Categorization Management Team which will provide ongoing technical guidance and input into the process, in coordination with the CPIMS+ Steering Committee Coordinator and Steering Committee.

The consultant will perform following functions:

• Conduct a desk review of ways in which violations, risk factors/vulnerabilities and protective factors/ assets and interventions are currently classified in CP case management tools being utilized across agencies, as well as available data structure tools utilized by both CP actors at the global level and in selected field operations from multiple organizations. This includes the inter-agency case management forms’ protection concerns as a key starting point, as well as country-specific work and examples.
• In consultation with a range of child protection partners, design a standard data structure for Case Management in Child Protection in Humanitarian Action which defines and categorizes data that:
  • Reaches agreed terminology and definitions for harmonization in data collection.
  • The different definitions are, where possible, mutually exclusive (do not overlap).
  • As far as possible mitigates “double-counting” of individual children enduring multiple violations/harm and/or risks who are accessing the same service.
• Country level testing of data structures with proposed country selection agreed to in the Management Group (approximately 2-3 contexts).
• Support the establishment of an advisory group to provide input into the process as needed.

Timeframe:

This consultancy is being recruited for 60 working days between February 1, 2022 to October 15, 2022, based on following timeframe.

• By February 2022: Conduct a desk review of ways in which violations, risk factors/vulnerabilities and protective factors/assets and interventions are currently classified in CP case management tools being utilized across agencies, as well as available data structure tools utilized by both CP actors at the global level and in selected field operations from multiple organizations. This includes the inter-agency case management forms’ protection concerns as a key starting point, as well as country-specific work and examples.
• By May 2022: Support the establishment of an advisory group to provide input into the process as needed.
• By August 2022: In consultation with a range of child protection partners, design a standard data structure for Case Management in Child Protection in Humanitarian Action which defines and categorizes data that:
  • Reaches agreed terminology and definitions for harmonization in data collection.
  • The different definitions are, where possible, mutually exclusive (do not overlap).
  • As far as possible mitigates “double-counting” of individual children enduring multiple violations/harm and/or risks who are accessing the same service.
• By October 2022: Country level testing of data structures with proposed country selection agreed to in the Management Group (approximately 2 – 3 contexts).

Qualifications

(1) Education

• A post-graduate qualification in a relevant discipline, including demonstrable competency in child protection, social work/case management, international protection, humanitarian action, information and data management.

2) Work experience, knowledge and expertise required

• At least 5 to 7 years of experience in child protection case management or information management for case management and information systems management in humanitarian and inter-agency settings
• Demonstrated experience in child protection case management or information management for case management and information systems management in humanitarian and inter-agency settings.
• Demonstrated knowledge of data protection, information sharing protocols and practices is desirable.
• Experience in assessment, monitoring and evaluation, measurement and learning, data analysis or data classification.
• Demonstrated experience in project management, inter-agency coordination and consensus building.

Competencies

• Strong analytical and writing skills
• Autonomous, reliable
• A commitment to excellence & attention to detail
• Ability to work well and punctually under pressure
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to successfully interact with a diverse group of people and build consensus;
• Flexible work attitude, with the ability to follow direction and work independently across a virtual work environment;
• Excellent organizational skills, with the ability to independently track and follow-up on various tasks;
• Collaborative work style, with strong team-player attitude and ability to identify gaps and to take initiative to fill them;

Requirements

The interested candidates are requested to submit the following documents:

• CV
• Cover Letter describing relevant experience, qualifications and motivation.
• Indicative Proposal – including an outline of how this work could be developed, a work plan with proposed duration and daily consultancy rate.
• Three professional references, including their current contact information.

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

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. View our competency framework at: Here

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, culture, appearance, socio-economic status, ability, age, religious, and ethnic backgrounds, 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, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.