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For every child, the right to care

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) faces serious child protection challenges, with high rates of violence against children and gender-based violence, driven by traditional norms and economic hardship. A majority of young children experience physical punishment, and over half of women report intimate partner violence, yet services remain under-resourced and underutilized due to low reporting. Recognizing the overlap between violence against women and children, UNICEF has launched a Family Protection Program aligned with national Early Childhood Development (ECD) efforts. This integrated approach—focusing on parenting support, school-based psychosocial care, and youth issues—aims to build a cohesive system that ensures children grow up in safe, nurturing environments.

How can you make a difference? 

The consultant will play a key role in facilitating and coordinating UNICEF’s overall family protection and the ongoing ECD programmes in RMI including the Social Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) for ECD component being led by UNICEF. Specifically, the consultant will:

• Provide technical support to the RMI and Nauru Family Protection programs and RMI ECD National priorities.
• Coordinate the completion of the RMI component of a multi-country early marriage study, with an emphasis on caregivers, parenting and early childhood.
• Ensure Family Protection program links and has an integrated design with ECD, health and education sectors.
• Support development and adaptation of SBCC materials that promote positive parenting, early learning, and protection from violence, ensuring messages align with both child development and family protection, including prevention of neglect, abuse, and harmful practices.
• Support community engagement through dialogues, parenting sessions, and collaboration with local leaders to help shift harmful social norms and promote nurturing, safe, and protective environments for young children and families.
• Provide support to capacity strengthening of frontline workers and partners (e.g., ECD team, health, education, CSOs) to deliver integrated SBCC interventions that reinforce both ECD and family protection goals, including identifying and responding to risks affecting children and caregivers.
• Manage stakeholder relationships, including line ministries and NGO implementing partners.
• Provide support to implementing partners with monitoring and measurement of activities at output and outcome level.

Please refer to the  TOR Family Protection Consultant.pdf for further information on the deliverables and the timelines. 

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

• An Advanced University degree in international development, human rights, ECD, social welfare, international law, health, or other relevant field is required
• A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in child protection, health and/or other related areas at the international level, some of which preferably were served in a developing country, is required
• Relevant experience working with an international organization, NGO, or Government in the Pacific, or a similar context, is an asset
• Familiarity with protection programming and developing country contexts is required
• Experience providing prevention and response services to adolescents, such as in cases of teenage pregnancy, required
• Experience in linking adolescents to comprehensive services, such as education and life skills, required
• Health qualifications such as nursing or public health are highly desirable
• Experience in projects providing online platform support with information for young people an asset
• Proven ability to work independently under difficult conditions
• Fluency in written and spoken English

GUIDANCE FOR APPLICANTS:  Please submit a separate financial offer along with your application. The financial proposal should be a lump sum amount for all the deliverables and should show a breakdown for the following: 

• Monthly / Daily fees– based on the deliverables in the Terms of Reference above
• Travel (economy air ticket where applicable to take up assignment and field mission travel)
• Living allowance where travel is required
• Miscellaneous- to cover visa, health insurance (including medical evacuation for international consultants), communications, and other costs.

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 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 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

Contractors. Consultants 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.