National Individual Consultant/team of two consultants to document the transition from Blue Dots to Blue Grids (home-based, part-time), 21 working days, Bucharest, Romania

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.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

From the first days of the war in Ukraine, UNICEF Romania provided critical support for people fleeing the war through the Blue Dot Safe Space, Protection and Support Hubs (Blue Dots). So far, over 741,157 people, including 241,915 children, received protection, access to services and/or vital information.

As the war in Ukraine continues and displacement becomes protracted (including a part of the refugee population migrating between Ukraine and Romania), UNICEF’s programmatic response is being continuously adapted to the changing needs of refugee children and families, ensuring continued provision of information and protection support, including referrals, while developing a sustainable and systems-integrated model for the service provision.

One of the core principles of the Blue Dots is to contribute to the strengthening of existing national and local capacities and infrastructure and further build and support their efforts for an enhanced provision of the needed services for the refugees. Thus, there is need to consider a shift from an acute emergency response - to more long-term, sustainable, social inclusion initiatives, while also considering the sustainability, scalability, equity, high added value/impact, cost efficiency, etc.

As a results of UNICEF extensive consultations and planning, a programmatic shift and change of approach regarding the modality of service provision for refugee children and families is being made, which is transposing in a transition from the Blue Dots to the Blue Grids initiative. The Blue Grid intends to ensure effective referral and thus access to minimum set of protection and social services, similarly to the Blue Dots, yet aims at ensuring that services are provided by a sustainable network of professionals or services providers, working with and in coordination of local authorities and/or specialized decentralized/deconcentrated authorities at county level. The Blue Grid aims to improve accessibility to quality services provided by accredited service providers, maintaining the recognizable label for the network of professionals within the public authorities – which thus also guarantees that core child protection work forms part of the public case management system, offering adequate monitoring and oversight for quality insurance.

UNICEF, its implementing partners and particularly governmental partners, throughout the implementation of the Blue Dot initiative, accumulated an impressive amount of experience and lessons learned which are a prerequisite for the next phase. The transition to a Blue Grid should also consider a wide range of factors and challenges such as infrastructure, human and financial resources, availability of services at local level, existing workload and vulnerabilities etc. and ideally lead to building a stronger, adapted system. In order to systematise the knowledge and come-up with a unitary vision and operational suggestions regarding the transition, a five-day workshop will be organized in November 2023 with the participation of a wide range of partners, national and local authorities, other relevant stakeholders, in order to facilitate discussions, planning and documentation of the transition from the Blue Dots to the Blue Grids. The event will also provide the space to the involved partners and stakeholder to start the revision and update of the emergency preparedness county action plans.

UNICEF seeks an individual consultant/a team of two consultants to support the documentation, planning and support of the transition from the Blue Dots to Blue Grids, considering the existing and future capacities and infrastructure of the relevant counties in overtaking and continue to coordinate and provide the critical services to refugee children and families, including unaccompanied children and the most vulnerable ones, as well as to provide support in developing revised and updated emergency preparedness county action plans (up to 10 counties).

Scope of Work:

The individual consultant/team of two consultants will work under the supervision of the Child Protection Specialist/Child Protection Officer and in close collaboration with the larger UNICEF team for the implementation of the assignment.

UNICEF plans to organize a 5-day workshop where to bring together a wide range of partners, national and local authorities, UN agencies, implementing partners and other relevant stakeholder, in order to facilitate discussions, planning, documentation and support plans of the transition from the Blue Dots to the Blue Grids and to support county authorities in revising and updating their emergency preparedness county action plans. The workshop will create the space and will support the county authorities and other relevant stakeholders to have open discussions, experience sharing, debates and joint thinking and development process for achieving the above-mentioned results.

To achieve this, the individual consultant/team of two consultants will fulfill the following key tasks and responsibilities:

1. Develop the methodology and tools to be used for the five-day workshop to support the participants in developing by the end of the workshop of the: 1) transition action plan from Blue Dots to Blue Grids per county (with roles of all stakeholders, timeline, existing and needed resources, monitoring plan, etc.); 2) revised emergency preparedness plans of the counties (up to 10 counties). To inform the development of the methodology, tools and better understanding of the overall picture, UNICEF will provide the existing materials on Blue Dots and transition towards Blue Grids, including but not limited to guides, briefing notes, concept notes, activity reports, and field reports.

2. Facilitate and support the workshop participants to document and plan the progressive transitioning from Blue Dots to Blue Grids by considering the transfer of responsibilities of the current staff working and/or ensuring permanency in Blue Dots or other relevant services/initiatives to existing professionals, service providers or public authorities, by ensuring a multi-sectoral network of professionals responding to the needs of the refugee children and families based on the existing quality standards and referral mechanisms. The plans will include, but not limited to, roles of all stakeholders, timeline, existing and additional resources needed, monitoring plan and required support.

3. Facilitate and support the workshop participants to revise and update of the emergency preparedness county action plans and identify key actions to enhance county preparedness for any type of emergency or disaster. The exercise will take into consideration the operational capacities of the relevant local stakeholders to design and implement preparedness and responses to emergency crises (identify risks, likelihood, impact, mitigation measures, set up triggers that put the plan in motion, plan the immediate response, what are the actions, who should be involved, for what, in what timeline, when to revise the plan, etc.).

The entire process should be inclusive, take into consideration the wide range of authorities and other relevant actors, and also consider the sustainability, scalability, impact, cost efficiency, etc.

Work Assignments Overview

Deliverables/Outputs

TimelineDevelop the methodology and tools for the five-day workshop. This task includes the light desk review of the existing materials on Blue Dots and the transition towards Blue Grids.

Methodology and tools.

Second and third week of October- 5 working days.

Facilitate the five-day workshop and support the participants to:

1) document and plan the progressive transitioning from Blue Dots to Blue Grids;

2) revise and update of the emergency preparedness county action plans.

# Counties’ transition action plans from Blue Dots to Blue Grids

# Counties’ updated emergency preparedness action plans

Workshop report

Last week of October- 8 working days /If is a team of two consultants will be 16 days.

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

Minimum Qualifications required:

A Master’s degree in one of the following fields is required: social sciences, law, political science, public policy or another relevant technical field.

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

– A minimum of five years of professional experience in strategic/programme planning and development and/or organizational development.

– Proven experience in organizing and facilitating workshops for achieving specific deliverables.

– Good speaking and writing skills in Romanian and English.

– Good teamworking, organizational and communicational skills.

– Working experience in Romanian emergency response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis will be an advantage.

– Availability for work within the proposed time frame.

Application procedure:

The application will be made in the dedicated UNICEF platform and it must include:

1. An updated CV focused on the skills and experience matching those requested by the current consultancy
2. A letter of intent describing specific knowledge and skills to develop the methodology and tools for an extended workshop and facilitate big groups of people for achieving the planned outcomes, and the proposed methodology and approach;
3. Financial Offer should indicate the GROSS amount in RON as per the attached template. Financial Offer National Consultant Transition from Blue Dot to Blue Grid.xlsx

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.