International Consultant (Child Protection); Dhaka; Bangladesh (Not for Bangladeshi); Re-advertisement

Contract

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Background:

Children experience violence, abuse, exploitation, and neglect throughout the life cycle from conception. This violence is experienced in the home, in the community, on the streets, at school and online; perpetrated by parents and/or other caregivers, including service providers (in schools, health facilities, child facilities including detention centres, drop-in facilities, etc.) These adverse childhood experiences (ACE) leave lifelong impacts on the wellbeing of a child and can result in a child not being able to survive and thrive through life.

The most common forms of violence affecting children in Bangladesh takes place in a home and family setting that starts through violence during pregnancy. According to the MICS 2019, 9 out of 10 children experience some form of violent disciplining by their parents or immediate relatives and there is an increasing trend of violence against children aged between one and 14 years. The same study showed that physical and psychological violent practices in 2019 was 88.8 per cent, an increase of more than 6% from 5 years earlier. It is also estimated that violence against children and women further increased by 35%[1] due to lockdown for COVID-19.

Children are also victims of other harmful practices due to the wide acceptability of certain social norms including child marriage, child labour, violent ways of disciplining children and intimate partner violence. Child marriage is prevalent with 51.4 per cent of women aged 20-24 years first married before their 18th birthday (MICS 2019). A recent rapid assessment[2] on child marriage during COVID showed that a total number of 13,886 child marriages have been reported from 20,575 respondents and they mentioned that there is an increasing trend of early marriage due to school closure during COVID pandemic and multidimensional risks.

The health service seeking for care and development of children and adolescents is also very poor in the country. Only 37% of pregnant women receive the recommended four antenatal care visits, while just 65% of new mothers receive post-natal care. Among children 2-4 years, only 47% of mothers and 11% of fathers engage their children in learning. The situation is even worse among the marginalized and vulnerable people, particularly those with disabilities. Disability prevalence in the total population is 9.1 per cent as per Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2010, while 2011 National Census found only 1.7 per cent prevalence and reliable data on disability in Bangladesh is limited. Stereotype belief systems and discriminatory behaviour across all levels affect access to services and care, health, nutrition, education, and participation.

While the home and family can be the primary setting where “family violence” and “intimate partner violence” occurs, helping parents, caregivers, extended family and communities is vital to strengthen a community-led child protection system. This enables family and extended community to understand the importance of positive, non-violent discipline in child development, reducing physical corporal punishment, c – all factors that help prevent violence against children, especially in family settings.

Family support programs, coupled with enhanced community-based child protection mechanisms, led by community leaders, religious leaders, children, including adolescents, focuses on enhancing child protection prevention and response to violence at the community and village level. This bottom-up approach, fully community-driven aims at enhancing community members’ capacity to prevent violence against children and women and all sorts of harmful practices and changing the social structures and protective mechanisms. These established mechanisms play also the role of identifying potential cases of children, including adolescents at risk and referring them to child protection services and social workforce system.

The family support program is grounded on an evidence-based approach to programming along all life cycle. Evidence showed that families and communities play a critical role in facilitating early experiences through the provision of nurturing care, to improve holistic outcomes for children, which constitutes five domains: caregiving, stimulation, support and responsiveness, structure, and socialization. Global Evidence (GAGE 2019) results[3] reflected that family support programmes reduced adolescent behaviour problems through improved communication of parents/caregivers and children/adolescents including reduced experience of violence and improved mental health indicators.

Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in terms of policy and legislative reforms for addressing violence against children and women. The country has adopted several legislative measures including Children Act 2013, Prevention of Oppression against women and children 2000 with rules, Domestic Violence Prevention and Protection Act 2010 with rules; Bangladesh Labor Law 2006 with an amendment in 2013 and 2018, Anti Trafficking Act 2012 and 104 special tribunal for women and children repression prevention which are directly related to preserving the protection rights of children; Some national-level policies are adapted as well including National Children’s Policy 2011, National Policy for Women’s Advancement 1997, NPA to prevent trafficking, National Policy on Domestic Workers’ Rights, Child Labor Elimination Policy 2010, Circular on banning 38 categories of hazardous labour, high court directives on preventing and addressing sexual harassment etc. National Plan of Action to Prevent and Respond to Violence against Women and Children (NPAEVAWC), which is led by the MoWCA. The NPA has been developed in line with the national and international human rights policies and legal frameworks, national constitutions and addressed a range of issues including VAW/C at home and in public places”.

Bangladesh has very limited programs on family support and those that do exist mostly are focused on health, nutrition, early learning etc. however, adverse effects of violence, neglect, abuse, and maltreatment are ignored. Also, family and community support for the prevention of harmful practices is virtually non-existent. Caseworkers, community workers and/or volunteers are not available to engage at the village level to support families in making positive choices for their children and to support communities in influencing families positively as drivers of social change.

In line with the new CPD, Child Protection PSN and action plans with MoWCA and MoSW, Child Protection aims at hiring aninternational consultant who will work with the Child Protection Section to develop a comprehensive Family Support Program including a package for capacity building and for use by the new community-based system workers, approved by MoSW.

It is important to note that, the Communication for Development (C4D) section has hired a national consultant, NOD level, to conduct a mapping the existing resources, packages and tools of parenting; mapping of the existing adolescent engagement platforms in Bangladesh and; to provide technical support for the development of context-appropriate integrated and standardized Parenting Package (SPP).

As mentioned above, the existing parenting education programmes do not include the impact of violence, neglect, abuse, and maltreatment.

To ensure child protection inputs are comprehensively captured in the SPP, the consultants support the Child Protection Section to contribute to the work of the C4D positive parenting education by providing inputs as the standardized and integrated parenting education package is developed. This will be a supplementary role for the consultants.

Specifically, the Family Support consultant’s main accountabilities will be:

1. Review of family support programs and initiatives regionally and globally both at government, non-government, private sector and community levels from a child protection lens (violence and harmful practice prevention and response).
2. Review of family support programs and initiatives in Bangladesh both at government, non-government, private sector and community levels from a child protection lens (violence and harmful practice prevention and response).
3. Identification of best practices globally and regionally of child protection family support programs and materials including resources, community engagement and case management theories
4. Share specific recommendations for integrating child protection comments to the standardized and integrated parenting education package led by C4D section
5. Supporting the modelling and field testing of the Child Protection Family Support Package within the newly developed Community-Based Child Protection Systems including the Children and Adolescent Clubs (supported by MoWCA), Social Workers (DSS), and ward/village volunteers.

PHASE – I

1. Mapping and desk review of family support programs and existing mechanisms at country /national level which have focused on child protection issues (guidelines/tools/program or strategic papers)
2. Develop Child Protection specific material to support families and communities to prevent harmful practices and VACW. This will include consultations and interviews with MoWCA, DSS non-government agencies and departments working on child protection programmes, and UNICEF partners working on family support programs and/or initiatives with a child protection lens.
3. Roll out, in the testing phase, the materials to the village level of the initial child protection community-based system = 100 Unions, 300 wards.

PHASE II

1. Share specific recommendations for designing a national roll-out of the family support program with various levels of the child protection system from social workers and CRFs to village level volunteers.
2. Give technical support to the C4D consultant to conduct a field testing of the Bangladesh standardized parenting package(SPP) within Children and Adolescent Clubs (supported by MoWCA) and Social Workers (DSS)
3. Design a sustainability strategy (including mech for monitoring and review) and a national action plan with MoWCA and DSS for integrating SPP into the capacity development of DSS and MoWCA - social workforce and child protection frontline workers

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills/ Work Experience required:

• An Advanced University Degree in social and behavioral science, sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, ECD, communication, development studies or other related field.
• Sound knowledge on different social issues preferably child protection, violence against children, harmful practices, child protection community-led mechanisms, system strengthening and behavioral and Social norms related issues and communication with communities, advocacy and multi-stakeholder partnership issues in the Bangladesh context.
• Relevant experience and expertise with comprehensive parenting and family support programmes, communication package development on child protection, child rights, development and care work;
• Required understanding of gender equality and gender issues including current programming and research.
• Relevant experience in related areas in a UN system agency or organization and experience in managing multi-stakeholder partnerships.
• Demonstrated experience undertaking gender-related research and the development, piloting and rollout of gender-related training modules.
• A minimum of 8 years of professional experience in the field of social development programme planning, child protection, violence prevention, behaviour change communication and advocacy.
• Experience working in any other country is considered as an asset.
• Excellent organizational skills and ability to handle and complete multiple assignments with competing deadlines.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Other requirements

• High level of Integrity and commitment to responsibilities.
• Conceptual ability, negotiating, communication and advocacy skills.
• Familiarity with UNICEF systems is an asset.

[1] http://www.manusherjonno.org/mjf-newsletter-march-2021

[2] Summary Report of the ‘Rapid Analysis of Child Marriage Situation during COVID-19 in Bangladesh’ research conducted by Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) supported by UNFPA, UNICEF, Plan International Bangladesh & GNB, 2020

[3] What are the impacts of parenting programmes on adolescents? A review of evidence from low- and middle-income countries, GAGE, 2019

For every Child, you demonstrate…

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

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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:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

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.